Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

LONDON REGIONAL TRANSPORT BILL (By Order)

Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question [10 December], That the Bill be now considered.

Debate further adjourned till Thursday 19 May.

TEIGNMOUTH QUAY COMPANY BILL (By Order)

YORK CITY COUNCIL BILL [Lords] (By Order)

CARDIFF BAY BARRAGE BILL (By Order)

FALMOUTH CONTAINER TERMINAL BILL (By Order)

NORTH KILLINGHOLME CARGO TERMINAL BILL (By Order)

ST. GEORGE'S HILL, WEYBRIDGE, ESTATE BILL (By Order)

NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE TOWN MOOR BILL [Lords]
(By Order)

Orders for Second Reading read.

To be read a Second time upon Thursday 19 May.

ASSOCIATED BRITISH PORTS (NO. 2) BILL (By Order)

Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question [11 May], That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Debate further adjourned till Thursday 19 May.

HAMPSHIRE (LYNDHURST BYPASS) BILL [Lords]

Ordered,
That the Committee on the Hampshire (Lyndhurst Bypass) Bill [Lords] have leave to visit and inspect the site of the proposed works, and any sites which have been proposed as alternatives, provided that no evidence shall be taken in the course of such visit and that any party who has made an Appearance before the Committee be permitted to attend by his Counsel, Agent or other representative.—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL FINANCE

Council of Ministers

Mr. Knox: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he next proposes to have discussions with the European Community Council of Ministers about European monetary matters.

The Paymaster General (Mr. Peter Brooke): At an informal meeting of European Community Finance Ministers in Germany on 14 and 15 May.

Mr. Knox: In his discussions with his European counterparts, will my right hon. Friend confirm that it is Government policy to continue to try to achieve the maximum possible exchange rate stability?

Mr. Brooke: I have no doubt that my right hon. Friend will continue to say the same sort of things to his colleagues on the continent as he has before.

Mr. Beith: Will the time ever be right for Britain to join the European monetary system as long as this Government are in power?

Mr. Brooke: As the hon. Gentleman knows, that matter is kept under continual review. The Government will join when they think the time is right.

Mr. John Browne: In his discussions, will my right hon. Friend agree to put a proposal to his fellow Ministers that, with the advent of the single European market, with the free movement of labour, goods, services and capital, we shall have the economic conditions that will allow us to have a single European currency instead of the composite currency that now exists in the form of the ecu? Will he remind his fellow Ministers that in the United States the dollar encompasses 52 states, each with a different tax regime, so there is no need to wait for European tax harmonisation? Will he also remind them that each year about £2 billion is made by foreign exchange dealers dealing in European currencies alone?

Mr. Brooke: My hon. Friend advances a visionary idea, but I doubt whether my right hon. Friend will say that to his colleagues this weekend.

Mr. John Smith: In relation to European and other exchange rates, what is the Chancellor's exchange rate policy? We were told that the pound would be aligned with the deutschmark when it was below Dm3, since when the level of the pound has consistently risen, despite the Chancellor constantly telling us that each rise is unsustainable. As the Chancellor told The Wall Street Journal yesterday that the pound should continue to be aligned to the deutschmark, at what level should it be so aligned? Or has he been elbowed aside by the Prime Minister, and is it now his policy that it is unsustainable?

Mr. Brooke: The right hon. and learned Gentleman has asked me a long question. There is a long answer to it in my right hon. Friend's evidence to the Treasury and Civil Service Select Committee.

Tax Breaks

Mr. Jacques Arnold: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many tax breaks are eliminated or reduced by the Finance (No. 2) Bill 1988.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Norman Lamont): The main tax breaks eliminated or reduced by this year's Finance Bill are the forestry tax shelter, the tax relief for non-charitable convenants and for home improvement loans, and the under-taxation of company car scales.

Mr. Arnold: Does my right hon. Friend accept that the elimination of these loopholes, which were inherited from the Labour Government, is extremely welcome and constitutes the reverse side of the coin of the tax cuts in the recent Budget? They are particularly welcome as they will reduce the load on tax lawyers and tax accountants, who can then put their brilliant minds to work that is productive to the economy. In taking these steps further, will my right hon. Friend learn from experience in the United States in this regard?

Mr. Lamont: It is not often appreciated that in many respects we have gone further than the United States, which retains some—and more—of the reliefs that we have. If one adds to the list business entertainment, life assurance premium relief and the alterations that we have made to align capital gains tax and income tax, the revenues raised by these changes in 1989–90 will be more than £800 million. We do not hear much about that from the Opposition.

Mr. Nigel Griffiths: When the Prime Minister was wagging her finger at the Chancellor, as was reported to him by his hon. Friends, was it because of differences about the exchange rate, because of a difference of opinion over interest rates, or just because she was telling him to let the pound rise, no matter what the expense to British industry?

Mr. Lamont: Those are highly interesting questions, but, alas, they have nothing to do with the question on the Order Paper. All that I shall say to the hon. Gentleman is that I was there and he was not.

Mr. Boswell: Does my right Friend agree that one of the best consequences of lower tax rates is a reduction in the premium on the avoidance of tax? In that contest, will he promise to consider a speedy end to the close company provisions, which now seem wholly redundant?

Mr. Lamont: I shall consider my hon. Friend's latter point; and, of course, his first point is entirely right. The dramatic reductions in rates that we have made substantially reduce the incentive for people to waste a lot of time trying to find a way round and through the tax system—something that they did enormously when we had punitive taxation rates under the previous Labour Government.

Mr. Gordon Brown: But will the Financial Secretary confirm that for every tax loophole that was closed in the Budget another was opened by the Chancellor? Will he also confirm that whereas somebody earning less than £60 a week will be paying 25p in the pound in tax, which is completely unavoidable, the man earning £1 million, by using all the tax loopholes that the Chancellor has made available to him, can end up with a tax liability of absolutely nil? How does he defend that?

Mr. Lamont: The first point that I would make is that if the hon. Gentleman thinks that under the Labour Government there were not ways in which someone's tax bill could be reduced to nil, he does not know what was happening. Secondly, we have deliberately retained some reliefs in the tax system, such as the business expansion scheme and the enterprise zones, because we think that they serve a socially useful purpose. I do not know why the hon. Gentleman is so opposed to enterprise zones. The other day he said that some rich men are now finding the

charms of Middlesbrough irresistible. That shows that the tax relief on enterprise zones is doing some good. It has doubled employment in the enterprise zones.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I appeal for brief questions today and then we shall have brief answers.

Inheritance Tax

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his latest estimate of the financial effect on the Exchequer in a full year of the changes in inheritance tax announced in the Budget.

Mr. Norman Lamont: The full year cost is £220 million measured from an indexed base.

Mr. Bennett: Does the Minister accept that that is a substantial sum and that for an estate worth £1 million the tax bill has now been cut by £148,000? How can the Government justify giving money away in that way? Surely incentive is not an appropriate justification. Would it not have been better to help those of my constituents who have lost housing benefit and rent rebates? That would be a much more appropriate way for the Government to spend money than to give it to those who are already well off.

Mr. Lamont: If the hon. Gentleman had been here earlier this week he would know that we debated that matter fully. Several of my hon. Friends made the point that the incentive to hand on money is one of the most important incentives for keeping businesses together, and we believe that that contributes greatly to the incentives that are necessary for the growth of our economy.

Mr. Nicholas Bennett: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the difference between Conservative and Opposition Members is that Conservatives believe that income tax and inheritance tax relate to money that belongs to the individual, whereas the Opposition believe that it belongs to the state and that we should be given back only a little pocket money?

Mr. Lamont: My hon. Friend is entirely right. He might also have added that if we had punitive rates of inheritance tax we would probably find that we raised less money, because since we started cutting the rates of inheritance the yield has gone up.

Dr. Marek: What conceivable reason is there for the Chancellor to give away money on estates worth £1 million and more to the super-rich, who do not need it? It cannot be because there will be any incentive. It cannot be because it will attract other people to Britain. The Minister has admitted that it is a loss to the revenue. Is it not a theft of public money from the Treasury to give to people who have far too much already?

Mr. Lamont: The hon. Gentleman entirely ignores the fact that the money is the taxpayer's in the first place. What conceivable reason is there to want to break up existing family businesses?

Mr. Carrington: Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the most welcome aspects of the changes in inheritance tax is that the effective rate, taking into account the business property relief on the transfer of


small businesses to the next generation, is now below 20 per cent.? Is this not a great encouragement for the formation of small companies, as well as for the prosperity of coming generations?

Mr. Lamont: The Government have very much altered the nature of inheritance tax, not only with the change to which my hon. Friend refers, but with the provisions for lifetime giving. It seems to escape the notice of Opposition Members that the burden of inheritance tax at the lower end was such that, because of increasing house prices, it was hitting many people of comparatively modest means.

Government Departments (Advertising)

Mr. Tony Banks: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what steps he takes to ensure that advertising expenditure by Government Departments is kept under control.

Mr. Home Robertson: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how Her Majesty's Treasury monitors the public expenditure of Government Departments on advertising.

The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. John Major): The cost of advertising is found from departmental spending programmes, as published in the public expenditure White Paper. The Treasury does not monitor and control it separately.

Mr. Banks: Is the Chief Secretary aware that Government expenditure on advertising has gone up fivefold since 1979, and, in the current year, is estimated to be £88 million? I realise, of course, that rotten products take a lot of advertising to sell, and nothing comes more rotten than Government policies. However, as many of the policies on which the taxpayers' money is spent are controversial, does the Chief Secretary agree that, rather than the taxpayer funding party political advertising by the Conservative party, Conservative Central Office should make a substantial contribution?

Mr. Major: The underlying premise of the hon. Gentleman's question is entirely wrong. In fact, the percentage of Central Office of Information expenditure on advertising is not materially different in the current year from that of 1978–79. On advertising generally, it is in everyone's interest to know about policies and new schemes and to receive advice on such matters as health and safety, and that is precisely what the Government are determined to do. They stick strictly by proprietorial rules that have existed for many years.

Mr. McCrindle: Would it not save the necessity for Government expenditure on advertising if my right hon. Friend were to take this opportunity to tell us what Conservative Members particularly wish to know, namely, that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has no intention of resigning—or is that a hypothetical question?

Mr. Major: I can certainly express a strong preference for my right hon. Friend remaining Chancellor for a considerable period. The evidence of his time as Chancellor is that he has produced a remarkably successful British economy.

Mr. Rees: The Chief Secretary referred to costs. Whose job is it in the COI to decide whether advertising has crossed the boundary into being party political?

Mr. Major: The role of the COI is to advise the Government on matters of propriety in relation to advertising. The COI is, of course, responsible to my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary to the Treasury. The final decision on advertising is a matter for the departmental Minister, but the Government are bound to accept the rules presented to the Widdicombe committee, and do so.

Mr. Curry: Does my right hon. Friend accept that the money being spent by the Department of Trade and Industry on advertising to encourage companies to take advantage of the single market is money well spent, but that if companies are to observe this exhortation they must be endowed with a stable and sustainable rate of exchange against the deutschmark?

Mr. Major: I believe that advertising designed to advise people of the merits and desirability of the single market is money well spent. It represents an extraordinary opportunity for British industry, and we wish to see it taken.

Mr. Nicholas Brown: The House was interested to hear the Chief Secretary confirm that responsibility for the COI within the Government Treasury team has slid from the Paymaster General to the Economic Secretary. Will he confirm that the reason that that change was slipped through, without a great blaze of publicity, was the clear conflict of interest between the Paymaster General's duties to the Government's Treasury team and his duties as chairman of the Conservative party?

Mr. Major: There can be no conflict of interest in that respect. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor passed the responsibilities for the COI to my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary to ensure that there was no such conflict, and he did that before there was a single representation from the Opposition to the effect that that change was needed.

Overseas Assets

Mr. Forth: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his latest estimate of t he stock of United Kingdom net overseas assets.

Mr. Brooke: At the end of last year the United Kingdom's net overseas assets were estimated at some £90 billion, second only to those of Japan.

Mr. Forth: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that encouraging answer. Will he confirm that a substantial part of those assets is in the United States? Does he believe that that is one of the main reasons for the most encouraging report in Fortune magazine on the excellent performance of the United Kingdom's economy under the stewardship of the Government and the Chancellor of the Exchequer?

Mr. Brooke: I do not know whether there is a connection between the two facts that my hon. Friend mentions, but he is correct in saying that there has been a warm endorsement of my right hon. Friend's policies by Fortune magazine.

Mr. Robert Sheldon: Does the Paymaster General agree that the value of the assets depends on sterling's exchange rate. Will he say how the Chancellor of the Exchequer has been able to have a quarrel with the Prime Minister on that most important matter, over which he has supreme authority? To quarrel with the Prime Minister on such matters may be unwise, but to do so openly is foolish.

Mr. Brooke: I confirm that the exchange rate affects the scale of overseas assets.
The right hon. Gentleman's second question does not seem to follow from the question originally asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Forth).

Sir William Clark: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the excellent figures of overseas assets prove the strength of the British economy? Does he further agree that the money that has been invested abroad has been extremely good, not only for our invisibles, but for our export potential? Does he also agree that we should do nothing to prevent the mobility of capital, no matter where that capital is invested?

Mr. Brooke: I endorse my hon. Friend's views. The removal of exchange control has played a substantial part in the build up of the assets that we have secured.

Mr. Holland: Surely the Government realise that the scale of foreign direct investment by British companies is disproportionate to Japanese investment. Japanese investment is mainly in the financial sector and buying other countries' companies. Our foreign investment substitutes for export trade. The evidence to prove that suggests that the scale of United Kingdom direct investment is undercutting exports to other countries and that is one of the reasons why we do not have an effective response even when the pound is low, and despite the fact that at the moment the Chancellor cannot get it low.

Mr. Brooke: In practical terms the answer to that question is the opposite to the hon. Gentleman's proposition. He has omitted to notice that the Japanese have placed their largest investment within the European Community in this country. A substantial part of that investment is in manufacturing.

Mr. Batiste: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the benefits accruing to Britain from those overseas assets will continue long after the transient benefits of North sea oil? That is a major vindication for the abolition of exchange control.

Mr. Brooke: My hon. Friend is correct. In 1987 the net income from overseas assets was the highest ever recorded.

Balance of Payments

Mr. Henderson: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what impact he expects the taxation changes announced in his Budget to have on the balance of payments.

Mr. Darling: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will assess the impact of the taxation changes in the Budget on the current account of the balance of payments.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Nigel Lawson): None.

Mr. Henderson: What action will the Chancellor take to prevent the rich from further damaging our balance of payments by spending their tax cuts on European cars, Japanese electronics and perhaps even Swiss chocolates?

Mr. Lawson: If I may say so, that is an extremely foolish question, even from the hon. Gentleman. I do not know whether we shall be told, in one of the new policy documents on public enterprise culture that are coming from the Labour party every day, what people may or may not spend money on, but the plain fact is that what distinguishes the rich is that they save a higher proportion of their income.

Mr. Darling: Despite the Chancellor's answer, is it not inevitable that increased consumer spending as a result of the tax cuts is bound to suck in more income? Will he consider what changes he can make to company taxation to encourage spending on research and development so that British manufacturing industry can improve its position, which in some cases is quite woeful?

Mr. Lawson: We all know that the Labour party is against tax cuts, that the Labour party voted against the basic rate tax cuts in the Budget, and that the Labour party, if it ever had the mischance to gain office again, would put taxes up, but that is not the road to economic success, as we saw when the Labour party was in office. The tax reductions in the Budget are part of a supply side programme which will improve the performance of the economy, and, over time, strengthen not only our economy as a whole, but the balance of payments in particular.

Mr. Tim Smith: Does my right hon. Friend recall that in the past United Kingdom Governments have deliberately devalued the currency in an attempt to increase export competitiveness and have usually failed to do so? Will he compare that with the performance of the strongest economies, such as Germany, Switzerland and Japan, which have the strongest currencies and also the strongest export performance?

Mr. Lawson: My hon. Friend makes a very good point. It is very difficult to know what is the current policy of the Opposition. The hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould) does have an exchange rate policy—that, whatever the exchange rate, it ought to be 20 per cent. lower. He has made that clear on a number of occasions. Perhaps the right hon. and learned Member for Monklands, East (Mr. Smith) will tell us whether he agrees with that.

Mr. Yeo: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the exceptionally strong overseas asset position that we now enjoy, coupled with the healthy state of public finances, means that we can regard with equanimity the prospect even of a balance of payments deficit? Is it not clear that since the Budget the foreign exchange markets have taken the same view?

Mr. Lawson: My hon. Friend is right. The temporary current account balance of payments deficit after six or seven years of continuous surplus is not a matter that should cause alarm. Certainly it is striking how overseas opinion has confidence in the British economy, despite the temporary current account deficit. That is shown by the popularity of sterling at the present time. It is also shown


by the Fortune (9 May, 1988) article to which my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Forth) referred, which said:
Britain is Back … the 20th century's archetype of unstoppable industrial decline has suddenly stopped declining and come roaring back.

Mr. Cryer: Will the Chancellor of the Exchequer talk about the booming economy and explain what the Government are going to do to remedy the current balance of payments deficit of about £4·5 billion? What are they going to do about the balance of trade deficit in manufactured goods with the Common Market, which is in excess of £10 billion? Does he regard those massive balance of trade and payments deficits as a mark of economic success, or of economic disaster, along with the 2 million jobs that the Government have disposed of in the manufacturing industry—more than Adolf Hitler achieved between 1939 and 1945?

Mr. Lawson: Manufacturing industry is doing very well indeed and is doing better all the time. That has been recorded in CBI survey after CBI survey. I do not think that the hon. Gentleman's crude mercantilism is a help in understanding these economic matters. The plain fact is that if monetary policy is sound, inflation is low, fiscal policy is sound—indeed, we have a balanced Budget and we have a surplus—and British industry is getting steadily more efficient, there is very little wrong with the British economy.

Mr. Watts: Does my right hon. Friend agree that his Budget tax changes will help to sustain our extremely satisfactory rate of economic growth and the improvement in the performance of our economy, upon which our trading performance ultimately depends?

Mr. Lawson: My hon. Friend is right. Our growth throughout the 1980s has been consistently at the top of the major European league table, and I expect that it will again be at the top of that league this year. As for the future, that is the whole point of the supply side policies that we have been pursuing in successive Budgets—to create a climate in which British industry and the British people can give of their best. That is why the British economy is doing so much better than it has ever done at any time since the war.

Mr. John Smith: As the Chancellor raised the question of exchange rate policy during earlier exchanges, can he tell us straight what his policy is on the exchange rate? He told us when the pound was less than Dm3 that the pound should follow the deutschmark. Since then it has gone up, through various so-called unsustainable levels, until it now stands at Dm3·16 and may go higher. Do the Government want the pound to be worth more, or less?

Mr. Lawson: Perhaps the right hon. and learned Gentleman can answer that question. I put it to him earlier. I have explained the policy very clearly to the Treasury and Civil Service Select Committee. That explanation is now available and it is well known to most hon. Members on both sides of the House. We also know the policy of the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould), which is that whatever the exchange rate is, it should be at least 20 per cent. lower. That is not my policy. What is the Opposition's policy, and what is the right hon. and learned Gentleman's policy?

Pensions (Income Tax)

Mr. Waller: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his estimate of the weekly value to the average pensioner couple of the changes in income tax for 1988–89.

Mr. Major: The Budget changes in income tax will be worth over £4·10 a week to I he average pensioner couple paying income tax.

Mr. Waller: While recognising that about half of all pensioner couples do not pay income tax at all, and that this year's Budget will have taken about 195,000 pensioners out of income tax altogether, may I ask whether my right hon. Friend agrees that it is very good news for all those pensioners who pay tax that they will have gained, on average, about £4·19 a week from this Budget?

Mr. Major: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend, except in one tiny respect. It is not one half of pensioners who do not pay tax. As a result of the increase in age allowance and other changes, two thirds of pensioners do not now pay income tax.

Mr. Winnick: How can the Minister justify that claim? Although pensioners will receive a tax reduction, in many cases they will be paying £15 to £20 a week more in rent and rates, compensation for which will be only on a transitional basis? How do the Chancellor and the Chief Secretary justify a position in which the richest 1 per cent. of taxpayers are receiving 70 per cent. of all the Budget tax concessions?

Mr. Major: Between 1979 and now pensioners' real incomes have risen, in real terms, five times more than they increased in real terms between 1974 and 1979. Most pensioners' incomes under the social security changes have been either increased or are unchanged. The transitional protection arrangements that were announced by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services deal with the problems that are faced by a minority of pensioners who, until then, were losers.

Mr. Jack: Does my right hon. Friend agree that, in addition to the benefits from the tax changes as they affect pensioners, the control of inflation is also important, as it affects their disposable income? Pensioners remember how they were affected during the period when those who sit on the Labour Benches were in government. Does my right hon. Friend also agree that the increase in their disposable income will give pensioners a great opportunity to take the products of national savings, many of which are tax-free?

Mr. Major: I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. The change that has taken place in recent years in the living standards of pensioners was most effectively shown in the family expenditure survey that was published some time ago. Many people were considerably surprised by the improvement that has taken place.

Mr. Chris Smith: Is the Chief Secretary able to tell us what the weekly impact is on a pensioner couple, especially those with a small occupational pension, of the changes in the housing benefit tapers and the 20 per cent. rates payment provisions that were introduced by the Government in April? Do they not wipe out in hundreds of thousands of cases any small benefit that was available under the Budget?

Mr. John Smith: Yes.

Mr. Major: No, the answer is not necessarily yes. The net effect on a pensioner couple as a result of the changes will depend on a variety of intangibles, but in the vast majority of cases considerable protection is provided against them, and the average living standards of pensioners have materially increased.

Economic Growth

Mr. Cran: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what were the regional growth rates in the British economy in 1986–87; and what information he has on regional growth rates in other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries.

Mr. Lawson: The latest official estimates of United Kingdom regional money GDP growth, measured at factor cost, are for 1986. I shall arrange for the relevant information to be placed in the Official Report. Estimates for regional GDP, but on a somewhat different basis, are available for other EC countries in the Eurostat Yearbook of Regional Statistics, a copy of which may be obtained through the House Library.

Mr. Cran: Is my right hon. Friend aware that unemployment in my constituency of Beverley in east Yorkshire has fallen by the staggering total of 22 per cent. in the past year? Is it not an incontrovertible truth, and a fact that should be understood by the Labour Benches, that the Government's economic policy works in the north of England as well as in the south?

Mr. Lawson: My hon. Friend is right. One of the most encouraging signs of the current strength of the economy is the way in which prosperity is spreading throughout the economy and unemployment is coming down throughout the economy. Only the other day I was looking at the figures for job vacancy advertisements in some of the leading regional papers. It was interesting to note that in the Manchester Evening News job vacancy advertisements are up 26 per cent. from a year ago; in the Bradford Telegraph and Argus they are up 40 per cent. and in the Birmingham Evening Mail they are up 41 per cent. My hon. Friend will be particularly interested to know that job advertisements in the Yorkshire Post are up 61 per cent.

Mr. Maclennan: Is the Chancellor not worried by the expansion of domestic credit—[Interruption.]—as manifested by the inflation of house and property prices in the south-east? If he is to take corrective action on interest rates, which he was hinting to the Wall Street Journal, will he also take action to protect those parts of the regional economy that are not suffering from these problems?

Mr. Lawson: As I pointed out, one of the most encouraging aspects of the current economic scene is the way in which prosperity is now spread throughout the country, and in which unemployment in particular has gone down faster in many regions than in the south-east of England. Of course there is a regional imbalance; there always has been. When the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) was a member of the Labour party—I do not know his party now—and indeed a junior Minister, there was a regional imbalance. But all parts of the economy are growing faster now than they were then.

Mr. Oppenheim: Bearing in mind the effects on growth of exchange rates, can my right hon. Friend tell us the cost of supporting the dollar last year and the loss in sterling terms? Does he think that it was money well spent?

Mr. Lawson: We do not publish figures of the exchange equalisation account and its operations, for obvious reasons. No previous Government have done so. If the House wants to investigate this matter, a perfectly proper channel for that is an investigation by the Public Accounts Committee, as indeed occurred in 1978. At that time the practice of the Government, which was the same as this Government's, was endorsed. As for intervention in the foreign exchange markets, it is a very foolish Government who refrain from intervention in foreign exchange markets in all circumstances.

Mr. Skinner: When the Chancellor of the Exchequer has looked through all those newspapers at the situations vacant columns, and perhaps found himself a job, will he tell the Prime Minister first? When he has done with it, will he get all the bundles of papers together and pass them to the leader of the SDP, because he is looking for a job, and then pass them on to the Liberal Chief Whip, because he is looking for a job, and then to the present leader of the Liberal party/SDP, because he is looking as well?

Mr. Lawson: I do not think it would be right of me to intrude into this delicate subject of rather private grief.

Following is the information:


Regional increases in money GDP (percentage changes on year earlier, current prices, factor cost)



11986


North
11·3


Yorkshire and Humberside
9·2


East Midlands
10·2


East Anglia
12·3


South-East
11·7


South-West
11·6


West Midlands
8·4


North-West
9·3


Wales
7·7


Scotland
7·7


Northern Ireland
7·1


United Kingdom2
10·3


1 Provisional.


2 Excluding the continental shelf region.

Source: Economic Trends, November 1987, page 86.

Mr. Baldry: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what has been the United Kingdom annual inflation-adjusted rate of growth since 1981; and what equivalent information he has about the United Kingdom's major competitors.

Mr. Major: Between 1981 and 1987, total output in the United Kingdom grew on average by over 3 per cent. a year. That is faster than in any of the other seven major industrial countries except Japan.

Mr. Baldry: Is it not particularly gratifying that, in 1987, growth in United Kingdom manufacturing output was dramatically higher than in any other country in the Group of Seven? Will my right hon. Friend consider going halves with me in buying every Opposition Member a copy of the recent issue of "Fortune" magazine, so that they


may have a better comprehension of the dramatic and continuing improvement of the United Kingdom economy?

Mr. Major: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend's first point. On his second point, I am not entirely sure that it would be money well spent, but I am prepared to try it. For my hon. Friend's interest, and that of the Opposition, I affirm that, since 1980, in manufacturing alone, output per British worker has risen by more than 5 per cent. a year. That is even faster than at any time in the 1960s.

Inflation

Mr. Beith: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a further statement on progress towards the elimination of inflation.

Mr. Major: The elimination of inflation remains our ultimate objective.

Mr. Beith: As the Government—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. Interruptions take up a lot of time.

Mr. Beith: Talking of ultimate objectives, as the Government are acknowledged to be three years behind on their target of eliminating inflation, will the Chief Secretary tell us to what extent that is because of price increases that the Government have imposed on nationalised industries, and to what extent it is because of the Chancellor's judgment that the measures that are necessary to squeeze inflation out of the system will stop growth?

Mr. Major: For reasons that are unknown to me, the hon. Gentleman's popularity seems to have grown rather substantially in the past few days.
The slower progress is not really surprising, given the strong growth performance of the economy. The hon. Gentleman touched upon that proposition in his question.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Although exchange rates clearly have an important role to play in bringing down inflation, does my right hon. Friend accept that the competitive edge of British industry could be undermined if sterling continues to rise? My right hon. Friend has referred to the tremendous contributions that manufacturing has made to the British economy in recent times, but such contributions could be completely undermined. Is it not important that we keep a careful watch if we wish British manufacturing to continue to play a major role in our economy?

Mr. Major: As my hon. Friend knows, it is certainly the Government's intention to ensure that manufacturing continues to grow as it has done. On that basis, we are certainly keen to aim at price stability. We agree, too, that the stability objective in the exchange rate is also a highly desirable proposition.

Balance of Payments

Mr. Wareing: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his latest estimate of the balance of payments deficit for 1988–89.

Mr. Lawson: The financial statement and budget report forecasts a current account deficit of £4 billion in 1988.

Mr. Wareing: Does that answer not reveal to us that one of the real reasons for the deficit has been the fact that the Government have converted a manufacturing trade surplus into a chronic deficit? Will the Chancellor take the opportunity now to explain how high exchange rates will help our exporters to be competitive, and how, as he said in his interview in the Wall Street Journal, high interest rates, not only in this country but in others, will increase economic activity, encourage investors and, indeed, boost employment?

Mr. Lawson: I am surprised that this figure really reveals anything, because it was published two months ago. As for the substantial point that the hon. Gentleman made, the comparison between this Government and the Labour Government is quite the reverse. During the whole period that this Government have been in office there has been cumulatively a substantial current account surplus, whereas during the Labour Government's period there was a current account deficit. Even more important is the real sign of competitiveness of manufacturing—yes, of manufacturing. During the period of the Labour Government Britain's share of world trade in manufactured goods was steadily declining. During the period that we have been in office it has stopped declining for the first time in decades, and has in fact risen slightly.

Husband and Wife Taxation

Mr. Knapman: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will estimate the effect upon elderly taxpayers of the change to independent taxation of husband and wife.

Mr. Norman Lamont: Over 80 per cent. of the 1·1 million elderly married couples paying tax under the present system will have less tax to pay under independent taxation, and 160,000 elderly couples will be taken out of tax altogether.

Mr. Knapman: I am obliged to my right hon. Friend for that reply. Can he confirm that elderly wives will get age allowance in their own right for the first time?

Mr. Lamont: My hon. Friend is right. That is one of the aspects of independent taxation that makes it very valuable to elderly people.

Manufacturing Output

Mr. Devlin: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the growth of manufacturing output in 1987.

Mr. Norman Lamont: Manufacturing output grew by 5½ per cent. between 1986 and 1987.

Mr. Devlin: Given the fact that there has been a 90 per cent. increase in GDP per head in the northern region, does my right hon. Friend see a significant improvement in manufacturing industry in that region?

Mr. Lamont: As my right hon. Friend the Chancellor said earlier, this last year has been an extremely strong one for manufacturing output, a nd he expects that the same will be true for this year as well. That obviously bodes well for the northern region.

Oral Answers to Questions — PRIME MINISTER

Engagements

Mr. Roy Hughes: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 12 May.

The Prime Minister (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher): This morning I presided at a meeting of the Cabinet and had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House I shall be having further meetings later today.

Mr. Hughes: In the course of her busy schedule, will the Prime Minister pause to consider the desperately long hospital waiting lists in Gwent, which, combined with the recent Scrooge-like cuts in social security benefits, would seem to illustrate her complete lack of concern for the plight of ordinary people? May I point out to her—or perhaps she needs an astrologer, after all—that it was factors of this sort that led to the virtual extermination of the Conservative party in Newport in the local elections last week?

The Prime Minister: With regard to the Health Service, first, there have been two specific programmes directly related to cutting down waiting lists that have been very successful. Secondly, there have not been cuts in the Health Service. Indeed, nearly £2 billion more is allocated to the Health Service this year than last. Thirdly, there have also been increases in social security. Again, another £2 billion has been allocated to social security over and above previous years. None of this could have been done unless my right hon. Friend the Chancellor had run the economy in such a way as to ensure a higher standard of living and of social services.

Sir Marcus Fox: Will my right hon. Friend take time today to consider the implications of the gains made by the Conservative party last week on the Bradford metropolitan district council, plus the defection this week of a Labour councillor who has joined us, thus making us the largest group on the council? Is this not a sign that people in the inner cities are looking to us to ensure for them a better future by controlling Government locally and nationally?

The Prime Minister: Yes. I join my hon. Friend in congratulating the people of Bradford on their wisdom. The results give Bradford new hope and a new chance. Prosperity is spreading widely all over the country, including the Bradford area.

Mr. William Ross: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 12 May.

The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.

Mr. Ross: Does the Prime Minister recall that a few days ago she told the House that she would seek reassurances from the Government of the Irish Republic that they would not back out of their responsibilities under the Anglo-Irish Agreement with regard to terrorism? Does she recall, further, that she told the House that the people of Northern Ireland would have their rights maintained under the Anglo-Irish Agreement and that the Government of the Irish Republic had accepted that? Did

her right hon. Friend the Secretary of State bring back such assurances after his private meeting with Mr. Haughey last week?

The Prime Minister: The hon. Member has quoted correctly what I said. The Anglo-Irish Agreement was signed by both Governments and registered with the United Nations, and must continue to be upheld. That, I believe, is now understood on both sides of the border.

Mr. Heseltine: Will my right hon. Friend reflect on the fact that it is 40 years to this very day since a Labour Minister announced that Britain would have its own independent atomic deterrent? Will she further reflect upon the remarkable contrast between what now must be seen as the giants of the postwar Labour Government and the political and parliamentary pygmies who have replaced them?

The Prime Minister: Yes. In those days there was virtually no difference between the two sides of the House on the importance of defence and the nuclear deterrent. What a pity there is such a difference now.

Mr. Blunkett: In view of the Government's unwillingness to use the Industry Act 1975 or other powers to intervene to protect Rowntree from the proposed takeover by Nestlé, will the right hon. Lady confirm that she is not willing to intervene to protect any industry, service or national asset from international predators and that it is the Opposition, not the Conservative Government, who would protect workers and the people of Britain?

The Prime Minister: I confirm what my right hon. and learned Friend pointed out on Tuesday, that when we receive a bid it has to be dealt with in accordance with the law passed by the House, after debate. That law is that the opinion of the Office of Fair Trading must be obtained and that the Secretary of State must wait to receive that opinion before making up his mind on whether such a bid should be referred to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. After that has been received, he will decide. If he decides to refer it, the matter can be dealt with under competition rules or under public interest. I hope that the hon. Member is not suggesting that we can disobey the law of the land.

Rev. William McCrea: Will the Prime Minister take it from me that the vast majority of the people throughout the United Kingdom deplore the unwarranted attacks on the members of the SAS who carried out an effective action in Gibraltar in defence of the innocent? Does the Prime Minister agree that it is disgusting that some people inside and outside the House are more concerned about terrorists than about the welfare of our security forces?

The Prime Minister: I join the hon. Gentleman in saying how thankful we are for the excellent services of all members of the security forces in protecting us from terrorism.

Mr. Wareing: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 12 May.

The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.

Mr. Wareing: Following the disclosure yesterday in the National Security Archive in Washington of Colonel Oliver North's memoranda, can the Prime Minister give


the House a categorical assurance that her Government have never, either directly or indirectly, perhaps through the CIA or her friend Colonel Pinochet in Chile, facilitated the supply of arms to the Contra terrorists in Nicaragua?

The Prime Minister: I have given the answer so many times. I will repeat it again. I can say categorically that we have not agreed to supply Blowpipe, and we have not supplied Blowpipe, to the Contras.

Mr. Forth: Has my right hon. Friend yet sent congratulations to the President of France on his re-election? Has she noticed that the leaders of the Governments in two of the great democracies in the world, France and the United States, will reach the end of their elected terms of office in their late seventies? Is she determined not to be outdone in this matter?

The Prime Minister: I have sent a message of congratulations to the President of France, and I have spoken to him. We hope to arrange a meeting, probably before the Toronto summit, to discuss important matters. I have also noted the point to which my hon. Friend referred. I assure him that at all times I shall take a balanced view of these matters.

Mr. Kinnock: The pound has risen again against the deutschmark. Is the Prime Minister content to see it going on rising?

The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman will complain when the pound goes up and when the pound goes down. The Chancellor will run the economy in such a way that he will combine low inflation with good economic growth. He has been extremely successful in that objective. It is an objective and an achievement which completely eluded the Opposition.

Mr. Kinnock: It is a pity that the Prime Minister could not answer that question. Can she answer this one? Does the right hon. Lady recall the Chancellor of the Exchequer saying two weeks ago, when the pound was lower than it is now,
I do not want to see the exchange rate appreciate further. It would he unsustainable and … damages business and industry.
Does the right hon. Lady agree with the point that the Chancellor made?

The Prime Minister: I agree that the Chancellor runs the economy extremely well, with low inflation—which Opposition Members were never able to do—and with excellent growth, giving all people in this country a much higher standard of living.

Mr. Kinnock: That is all very interesting. Can the right hon. Lady give us a straight answer? Does the Prime Minister agree with her Chancellor of the Exchequer?

The Prime Minister: We shall continue to run the economy, with low inflation, and excellent growth, which gives a high standard of living and a high standard of social services. It is that total picture that counts. What a pity that the right hon. Gentleman cannot understand the answers or the economics.

Mr. Holt: May I draw my right hon. Friend's attention to the position today in Langbaurgh and Redcar, where the Labour party is in total disarray?

Mr. Speaker: The Prime Minister is not responsible for that.

Mr. Holt: Will my right hon. Friend today send a message of support to the new Conservative mayor of the borough of Langbaurgh and Redcar, where the Labour administration has fallen apart and two Labour Members are now voting with the Conservatives?

The Prime Minister: I will join my hon. Friend in doing just that, and join him in congratulating the mayor.

Mr. Bernard Ingham

Mr. Dalyell: To ask the Prime Minister on approximately how many occasions since January 1986 Mr. Bernard Ingham has given briefings to the press on the unauthorised disclosure of letters between Ministers; and if she will make a statement.

The Prime Minister: As the hon. Gentleman knows, it is not the practice to comment on Lobby briefings.

Mr. Dalyell: Why is it that in the course of many, many speeches, many, many broadcasts and many, many press statements, not once has the truthfulness of the Prime Minister and of Mr. Ingham about the events of January 1986 been endorsed either by the right hon. and learned Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Brittan) or the giant from Henley (Mr. Heseltine)?

The Prime Minister: The details have been given many, many times in the House. I have nothing further to add to them.

Mr. Cash: Will my right hon. Friend note today that the—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman has not looked at the Order Paper. This is a definitive question.

Mr. Winnick: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 12 May.

The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.

Mr. Winnick: Is the reason why no replacement was made when Lord Whitelaw resigned as Deputy Prime Minister that the right hon. Lady already has a Deputy Prime Minister, her chief press secretary, Mr. Ingham? Although the right hon. Lady clearly has many difficulties in getting on with her Foreign Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer, is it desirable that a chief press secretary should have more influence in policy matters than any of her Cabinet colleagues?

The Prime Minister: The hon. Member must he hard put to it for a question to ask that one. I note that he cannot find a single thing to criticise about the economy or about the way in which the country is run. How very revealing.

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: If my right hon. Friend today, as First Lord of the Treasury, receives a request that the Bank of England Export Credits Guarantee Department should underwrite any deposits required by aspirants for the job of leader of the Social and Liberal Democrats, will she please resist it as firmly as she can?

The Prime Minister: I take note of my hon. Friend's sentiments.

Mr. A. J. Beith: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 12 May.

The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.

Mr. Beith: How long will it be before the pensioners who are now paying increased rents but hope to benefit from the Government's about-turn on the social security changes know for certain that they will benefit, and how long will it be before they receive the money?

The Prime Minister: I think that the hon. Gentleman, who I hope has an interesting week ahead, will already have received a letter from the Department of Health and Social Security giving details of a freepost and freephone service, where any inquiries can be made. He will know that a special unit has been set up in Glasgow to deal with each of those matters, and he will also know the place to which people can apply if they have any queries.

Mr. Squire: Following my right hon. Friend's visit to Docklands this week, will she underline from the Dispatch

Box the outstanding achievements in terms of jobs, housing and transport systems that the combination of private and public funding has achieved?

The Prime Minister: Yes. I went to Docklands yesterday. The result of the work of the London Docklands Development Corporation is quite outstanding. It is outstanding in the amount of investment that has been made there. About £4 billion of private sector investments have been secured. It is outstanding in the number of jobs that the area is providing. There are now 36,000 jobs in Docklands and the number unemployed has fallen by 15 per cent. It is outstanding in community support. About £17 million has been spent on that. It is outstanding in increased road and rail improvements. It is outstanding in housing in the private sector, and one notes that a quarter of purchasers of new homes on LDDC sites were former local council tenants. It is an outstanding achievement in every way for private enterprise, the imagination of the Government and the way in which the whole scheme has been administered by the first two chairmen and their deputies.

Business of the House

Mr. Frank Dobson: Will the Leader of the House state the business for next week?

The Lord President of the Council and the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. John Wakeham): The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY 16 MAY—Until seven o'clock, private Members' motions.
Second Reading of the Civil Evidence (Scotland) Bill [Lords].
TUESDAY 17 MAY AND WEDNESDAY 18 MAY—Remaining stages of the British Steel Bill.
At the end on Tuesday, motion to take note of EC documents on the joint research centre, and on Eureka and Community science and technology. Details will be given in the Official Report.
Followed by remaining stages of the Matrimonial Proceedings (Transfers) Bill [Lords].
At the end on Wednesday, motion relating to the Personal Community Charge (Students) (Scotland) Regulations.
THURSDAY 19 MAY—Opposition Day (12th Allotted Day) (1st part). Until seven o'clock there will be a debate on an Opposition motion entitled "The Future of British Shipbuilding".
Motion to take note of EC Documents on own resources and future financing, and the 1987 and 1988 Community Budgets. Details will be given in the Official Report.
FRIDAY 20 MAY—There will be a debate on the arts on a motion for the Adjournment of the House.
MONDAY 23 MAY—Opposition Day (12th Allotted Day) (2nd part). Until seven o'clock there will be a debate on an Opposition motion, subject for debate to be announced.
Remaining stages of the Firearms (Amendment) Bill.
The House will wish to know, Mr. Speaker, that subject to the progress of business it will be proposed that the House should rise for the spring Adjournment on Friday 27 May until Tuesday 7 June.

[Debate on Tuesday 17 May 1988

Relevant European Community documents


(a) 9454/87
5616/88
Joint Research Center


(b) 10845/86
Eureka and the European Community

Relevant report of European Legislation Committee

(a) HC 43-xii (1987–88) para 1 (9484/87)
(b) HC 22-vii (1986–87) para 3

Debate on Thursday 19 May 1988

Relevant European Community documents


(a) 10552/86
(b) Unnumbered
1987 Community budget


(c) Unnumbered
Carry-over of appropriations 1986–87


(d) 6037/87
(e) 6822/87
(f) 7552/87
1987 budget situation:
supplementary and amending
budget No. 1/87





(g) 6048/87
(h) 7211/87
(i) COM(87)240
(j) COM(87)677
(k) COM(88)81
1988 preliminary draft budget


(l) 4766/88
1988 draft budget


(m) 4051/87
Financial engineering


(n) 5266/88
Own resources


(o) 5282/88
Amendments to financial regulation


(p) Unnumbered
Budgetary discipline

Relevant report of European Legislation Committee

(a) HC 22-iv (1986–87) para 4
(b) HC 22-xv (1986–87) para 3
(c) HC 22-xvi (1986–87) para 2
(d) HC 43-ii (1987–88) para 3
(e) HC 43-ii (1987–88) para 3
(f) HC 43-ii (1987–88) para 3
(g) HC 43-ii (1987–88) para 4
(h) HC 43-ii (1987–88) para 4
(i) HC 43-ii (1987–88) para 4
(j) HC 43-xiv (1987–88) para 3
(k) HC 43-xx (1987–88) para 4
(I) HC 43-xxi (1987–88) para 4
(m) HC 22-xiii (1986–87) para 3
(n) HC 43-xxiii (1987–88) para 1
(o) HC 43-xxiv (1987–88)
(p) HC 43-xxiv (1987–88)]

Mr. Dobson: I thank the Leader of the House for his statement and for providing Government time for a debate on the arts. We hope that it is not a case of "Debate now while stocks last".
When may we expect a statement from the Secretary of State for Social Services on the U-turn unit set up to sort out the confusion that has occurred since the Government agreed not to cut housing benefit by as much as they originally intended? Hon. Members on both sides of the House still do not know the answers to the many questions that they are being asked by constituents who have been affected and they need an opportunity to obtain some answers from the Secretary of State.
Secondly, when can we expect the wide-ranging debate on foreign affairs that the Leader of the House promised some months ago?
Thirdly, may we expect an early Government statement on the reasonable and entirely justified desire of ex-Japanese prisoners of war to obtain compensation for their suffering?
Fourthly, in view of the outbreak of salmonella poisoning in the House of Lords, will the right hon. Gentleman, in the interests of all of us, even including those in the Press Gallery, bring forward a Bill to lift Crown immunity from the Palace of Westminster or give a fair wind to the Bill sponsored by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Ms. Walley) to do so?

Mr. Wakeham: First, the hon. Gentleman referred to the debate on the arts and I am grateful to him for his appreciation of the fact that we have found time for a debate on that important subject.
Secondly, the hon. Gentleman referred to the social security arrangements announced by my right hon. Friend. I believe that the statement and the letter sent by my hon. Friend the Minister for Social Security and the Disabled adequately set out the way to proceed, and, as


my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has said, those who want further information should follow the procedures. Nevertheless, I shall refer the matter to my right hon. Friend to see whether anything else needs to be done.
I know that there is considerable interest in having a debate on foreign affairs, and, although I cannot see the possibility of a debate in the immediate future, I shall certainly be looking for an opportunity before long.
I recognise that recent court judgments are of concern to ex-Japanese prisoners of war. Clearly those responsible will have to study the matter before we can make an announcement on it.
With regard to the unfortunate events in the House of Lords, I am not sure that bringing more legislation before the House will do much good for those who may be in difficulties at present. Most hon. Members will know about the strain of salmonella poisoning from which some people in the House of Lords are suffering. I shall ensure that the House is kept informed of any developments.

Sir Bernard Braine: In regard to the conduct of business, is my right hon. Friend aware of the anger and frustration, both in the House and the country, at the way in which the Abortion (Amendment) Bill, having secured its Second Reading by a substantial majority, having gone through its Committee stage successfully and having completed its Report stage save for the vital final votes, was talked out? As the Government will not give time for the completion of this private Member's Bill, seeking to amend a major Act, which is on the statute book only because a previous Government gave it additional time, does it not follow that they are morally bound to take up the issue themselves and to promote legislation to end the scandal of late abortions? When may we expect a statement from my right hon. Friend?

Mr. Wakeham: I recognise the very strong concerns expressed by my right hon. Friend and by many others in the House and the country. As I said to the House on Friday, the hon. Member for Liverpool, Mossley Hill (Mr. Alton), who is in charge of the Bill, has nominated tomorrow as the day for further discussion, so there may be an opportunity for the House to decide these matters if that is what it wishes to do. The Government's position is already clear. It is not our practice to provide extra time for the consideration of individual private Members' Bills, and I do not want to anticipate tomorrow's proceedings. My right hon. Friend knows that if his assessment of them is correct, I am ready to discuss the matter with him.

Mr. David Alton: Without anticipating tomorrow's proceedings, may I draw the attention of the Leader of the House to early-day motion 1086, signed by 107 hon. Members and urging that compensatory time be provided?
[That this House noting the great public interest in the Abortion (Amendment) Bill and the concern that this House should reach a decision on this important matter, calls upon the Government to find the means by which time can be provided to compensate for that which was lost on Friday 6th May in order to enable such a decision to be reached.]
The Bill achieved a majority of 45 on Second Reading; we completed the debate on Report and were in the midst

of the votes on Report. The early-day motion seeks to resolve that constitutionally awkward position. Will the Leader of the House at least consider other ways in which the Government can provide for hon. Members to arrive at a proper decision on the question?

Mr. Wakeham: I hear and understand what the hon. Gentleman says but do not want to anticipate what happens tomorrow. The Government believe that it is a very grave step for them to intervene in the process of private Members' Bills. I repeat that it is not the Government's practice to provide extra time.

Sir Fergus Montgomery (Altrincham and Sale): I add my pleas to the two that have already been made to my right hon. Friend. I have to say in fairness that, on Friday, the debate had finished and the arguments had all been put but, because of the tactics used by the Bill's opponents, the votes were not allowed to be taken. As the debates have been completed and the arguments put, I do not understand why the Bill's opponents are not prepared to allow the House to make a democratic decision. Although I understand the Government's difficulties in allowing extra time for private Members' Bills, surely we can at least have time to take the votes after hearing the arguments.

Mr. Wakeham: I recognise what my hon. Friend says and I wish that I could be more forthcoming. As my hon. Friend knows perfectly well, this is a controversial matter. The Government's position is clear, and I do not think that I can add to what has been said.

Mr. Merlyn Rees: I thank the Leader of the House for passing on to the Home Office my constantly raised question about reform of the Boundary Commission procedures. Now that the Home Office has turned down the report by the Select Committee on Home Affairs, would it not be a good idea to have a debate? When the Boundary Commission starts work, many hon. Members will find that the same mistakes will be made next time as were made last time.

Mr. Wakeham: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his comments. I recognise his experience in these matters and take what he says very seriously. I do not know whether there is a general desire for a debate, but I shall consider the matter and ascertain what can be done, if necessary.

Dr. Charles Goodson-Wickes: I am aware of my right hon. Friend's attitude to the Government giving time for debates on private Members' Bills, but will he say whether or when time can be provided for the Abortion (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill, now under consideration in another place? The Bill, after long consideration, recommends the 24-weeks limit, which it appears may command a majority of support in this House. I make this plea in the belief that there is a degree of frustration, both in the House and in the country, about the inconclusive attitude adopted towards the Abortion (Amendment) Bill in this House. I suggest that this would be a constructive way forward.

Mr. Wakeham: I say in all friendliness to my hon. Friend that I have enough difficulty in sorting out the Bills that are presently before the House without anticipating what I shall do about the Bills that have not yet arrived.

Mr. Alfred Morris: Has the Leader of the House seen my early-day motion 543 on New Zealand and the EEC?
[That this House affirms the right of British consumers to continue to buy butter from New Zealand in the same quantities as now; and calls upon Her Majesty's Government to ensure that there will be no diminution in New Zealand's butter exports to the United Kingdom.]
It now has more than 200 signatures of hon. Members on both sides of the House. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that a motion with support on that scale should be debated soon by the House, especially since it is on a matter of so much importance to New Zealand and the British consumer?

Mr. Wakeham: I recognise the force of what the right hon. Gentleman says. The Community will have to take into account a range of factors, including budgetary costs, consumers' views, its stance on trade policy issues in general and the pressures on the dairy industry resulting from quotas. It would be premature to discuss the Government's approach before the Commission has made proposals.
I am sure that the whole House would wish to express to the very distinguished New Zealand high commissioner and his family our sympathy following the dreadful physical attack made upon them and to wish them a full and speedy recovery.

Sir Anthony Grant: My right hon. Friend will recall that yesterday the private Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes (Mr. Brown)—the Associated British Ports (No. 2) Bill—failed to make progress because of the rather deplorable disruptive tactics in which the shadow Leader of the House, the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson), took part. My right hon. Friend will recall also that the shadow Leader of the House suggested that there was an urgent need to reform the private Bill procedure. Has the hon. Gentleman made any submission or given evidence to the Select Committee that is considering this matter?

Mr. Wakeham: I have many responsibilities in the House, but I am not responsible for what the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) has to say. I am sure that any hon. Member who believes that the private Bill procedure is antiquated or in need of reform will take the advice of the Chairman of Ways and Means, who is responsible for these matters, and give evidence to the Select Committee, which is ably chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest (Mr. McNair-Wilson), and thus put forward their points of view.

Mr. Frank Cook: May I refer the Leader of the House to early-day motion 1031 on the subject of the disregarding of the disabled employment quota and the scandalous way in which companies are ignoring the statutory requirement?
[That this House recalls that under the Disabled Persons Employment Acts of 1944 and 1958 it is unlawful for a major employer to engage a person who is not disabled if less than 3 per cent. of the workforce is made up of registered disabled people; notes that 32,922 employers qualify to meet this quota but that only 8,329 have satisfied these obligations; notes also that 18,577 exemption permits have been issued to allow avoidance of these statutes but that 18 per cent. of

companies whom the Department of Employment consider should have applied for an exemption have not yet done so; notes further that since 1944 only five companies have been prosecuted for non-compliance with this statutory requirement, the largest fine imposed being £100; deplores the flagrant disregard for law displayed by management and the spineless abdication of responsibility on the part of the authorities; and calls upon Her Majesty's Government to take steps at the earliest date to introduce measures to rectify such wilful neglect.]
May I also draw to the right hon. Gentleman's attention, if he has not seen it already, the answer given to me by the hon. Member for Berwick-upon Tweed (Mr. Beith), representing the House of Commons Commission, which reveals that since 1979 the Commission has never managed to do better than drawing 1 per cent. of its employees from among the disabled? As we cannot get the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed to answer on behalf of the Commission, will the Leader of the House arrange for a statement so that the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed can answer questions about why the House is in dereliction of its statutory duty?

Mr. Wakeham: If the hon. Gentleman is having difficulty in obtaining answers to questions that are in order from the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith), I shall do what I can to facilitate answers to him.
With regard to early-day motion 1031, the quota is within the scope of the internal review of services for the disabled announced in March by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment and which he has put in hand. I cannot guarantee to find time for an early debate on this matter.

Mr. Michael Brown: May I ask my right hon. Friend a question that relates to last night's adjourned business? Will it not become clear that, if we are to make progress on the Associated British Ports (No. 2) Bill and on the North Killingholme Cargo Terminal Bill. the only way in which it could possibly be done so that the House may have the opportunity to take a decision on these Bills is if additional time is given and, perhaps, if a suspension of the ten o'clock rule is contemplated by those who have power in these matters?

Mr. Wakeham: As the Chairman of Ways and Means made clear yesterday, he is responsible for setting down private business. Standing Order No. 16 provides that business set down by the Chairman of Ways and Means "shall be distributed as nearly as may be proportionately" between Government time and Opposition time. To date. six Bills have been taken in Government time and only two in Opposition time.
My hon. Friend's request to suspend the ten o'clock rule should be a request to me from the Chairman of Ways and Means, but I am sure that I would sympathetically consider any request made by him.

Mr. Eric S. Heffer: I have asked the right hon. Gentleman about this before, but, in view of the Prime Minister's statement this afternoon about the housing being built in yuppie land in London, will the right hon. Gentleman give time for a debate on safety in the construction industry? Is he aware that last year 152 workers in the construction industry lost their lives and 2,300 were seriously injured? Now, in London, we are faced with another extension of self-employment in the


construction industry. Is it not time that we had a proper debate on the important issue of health and safety in that industry?

Mr. Wakeham: I am not as expert as the hon. Gentleman on the construction industry. I agree that it has not had the best record on safety over the years, but I should have thought that the record shows that it has been improving in recent years. However, I shall refer what the hon. Gentleman said to my right hon. Friend, and, although I cannot promise him anything, I recognise that this is an important matter, and I shall see what we can do.

Sir Ian Lloyd: My right hon. Friend will be aware that within the past couple of days Members on both sides of the House have received the latest issue of The Parliamentarian, the journal of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, which contains a fascinating pair of articles on the development of information technology, first in the Canadian Parliament, and, secondly, in the Australian Parliament. In the Canadian Parliament it is now possible for a Member of that House not only to see what is going on in the Chamber but, if he wishes, to see what is going on simultaneously in any provincial legislature and in either House of the United States Congress. Does not that illustrate that we are rapidly falling behind in these matters? Will he bring back that central issue from the rather moribund Committee, where such matters now rest, to the Floor of the House so that we can discuss it and decide what should be done?

Mr. Wakeham: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving me notice that he would raise this subject. I have obtained a copy of the article to which he has referred, but I have not yet had an opportunity to read it. I know of my hon. Friend's considerable interest in this matter. He will know that computerised facilities in the Library have recently been considerably expanded, but information technology for hon. Members' own use must be a matter for individual hon. Members. I shall read the article, consider what it says and perhaps have a discusssion with my hon. Friend.

Mr. William Ross: Has the Leader of the House seen the large number of Government amendments to the Firearms (Amendment) Bill? Is he aware that they amount to a rewriting of large parts of the Bill. Has he taken particular notice of the fact that, on Report, large slabs of the Bill are now to be extended to Northern Ireland, which means that those parts of the Bill will now be discussed in a new light because of the different approach to firearms in Northern Ireland? Surely, in the light of that, putting the Bill on at 7 o'clock on a Monday evening will not provide sufficient time. Will he make further time available?

Mr. Wakeham: I have listened to the hon. Gentleman. My advice is that putting it down for that time was for the general convenience of the House. We shall have to see how we get on.

Mr. James Kilfedder: The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland's arrogant refusal to make a statement to the House about the Anglo-Eire Conference is a denial of the democratic and parliamentary process. The Secretary of State seems to be prepared to brief the

press on and off the record, but he is not prepared to brief hon. Members. Is it not time for time to be provided for a debate on the progress of the Anglo-Eire Conference so that people in Northern Ireland, through their representatives, can make their comments on it?

Mr. Wakeham: I do not accept for a minute my hon. Friend's comments about my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. As I said last week, notwithstanding the terms of the motion that some hon. Members have put down, a full statement on the subjects discussed at the conference has been placed in the Library. As is usually the case in international discussions, the proceedings of that conference must remain confidential. However, my right hon. Friend and his Ministers are ready to talk with hon. Members about the issues raised and I recommend that my hon. Friend has a talk with my right hon. Friend about that. I cannot promise an early debate, but we shall obviously have to bear the matter in mind.

Mr. Charles Kennedy: Will the Leader of the House try to arrange for the Secretary of State for the Environment to make a statement before the close of play in the Nirex consultative process on its document "The Way Forward" on the disposal of nuclear waste, particularly since there is growing evidence throughout the country that Nirex's failure to consult on the option of on-site disposal of nuclear material at existing nuclear installations is a source of concern, not least in my constituency, which today has announced a mini-referendum result of a 96 per cent. rejection on a 76 per cent. turnout of those balloted by the Electoral Reform Society?

Mr. Wakeham: The hon. Gentleman does not have to tell me about the controversy that some of the proposals engender, but I am not sure whether a statement in the middle of the consultation process is the best way forward. I shall have a word with my right hon. Friend to see whether he has any proposals to make.

Miss Ann Widdecombe: May I ask my right hon. Friend about his answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Sir B. Braine)? If the Government are not prepared to find extra time for the Abortion (Amendment) Bill, and if they are not prepared to allow compensatory time which would at least get us through the series of votes to be taken and the Third Reading, have the Government any intention of bringing forward proposals of their own on this subject, or is my right hon. Friend saying to the country and to the House—I want to be clear about this—that, despite 109 hon. Members already having signed the motion asking for extra time on the first day that it was down, despite the majority on Second Reading, and despite the widespread anxiety in the country over this matter, the Government and my right hon. Friend are giving this issue no priority?

Mr. Wakeham: I am sure that, if my hon. Friend thinks about it in a wider context than the Abortion (Amendment) Bill—about which I know she is very concerned—she will recognise that the Government's position on not giving additional time for private Members' Bills is based on very careful and detailed thought, and should not lightly be put aside. I have said that there will be a further chance tomorrow for the House to reach a decision, and I think that that is the best way to proceed today.

Ms. Joan Walley: Will the Leader of the House reconsider the reply that he gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson), and give some thought to ways in which the removal of Crown immunity can apply to the Palace of Westminster? Some 10,000 meals are served here every day. This is a place of work for many hundreds of people. No criticism is implied of the staff of the Refreshment Department, but I believe that this place should have the same legislative protection as public premises and food premises elsewhere. There is no substitute for proper inspections, monitoring and enforcement of legislation.

Mr. Wakeham: I believe that the staff and officers of the House conduct their duties to the highest standards, and they certainly have my full support. I would not accept any implied criticism, and I know that the hon. Lady did not intend such a criticism. I cannot give an answer immediately on whether legislation should be introduced. The hon. Lady has asked for a request to be made, and I will consider the matter, but I do not promise anything much.

Mr. Ivor Stanbrook: Is it the case that under the present Government no national controversial question can be settled by the private Members' Bill procedure, because the Government will in no circumstances allow Back Benchers to decide such matters, except when consenting to provide extra time? Is my right hon. Friend aware that the Government's predecessors never shirked their responsibility in this way? Have not the Government a moral duty at least to allow further discussion of the Abortion (Amendment) Bill so that this great question may be decided?

Mr. Wakeham: I hear and take note of what my hon. Friend has said, but I do not think that I can add anything more. It is not this Government's practice to provide additional time, but the House will have an opportunity on Friday to come to a conclusion on the matter if it wishes.

Mr. Frank Haynes: Is my right hon. Friend aware—[Laughter.] What is wrong with that? He has been a friend for a long while. Hon. Members should keep quiet. Is he aware that we had a marvellous debate last night on the Associated British Ports (No. 2) Bill? The Government appeared to be supporting the Bill last night, and had a payroll vote ready in case it was needed. Bearing in mind what the Leader of the House said about the Abortion (Amendment) Bill, will the Government find time for this Bill to be further considered?

Mr. Wakeham: I do not know from where the hon. Gentleman obtains his information. He is usually very well informed, but I am not sure that he is as well informed on this issue as he is on confectionery and other matters that may be more in his line.
As I said, time for private Bills is a matter for the Chairman of Ways and Means and the Standing Orders of the House, and I have no doubt that those responsible will conduct their duties properly.

Mr. John Marshall: In view of the problems in monopoly and merger policy caused by the fact that the Director General of Fair Trading has said that he may be unable to give a verdict on the bids for Rowntree for another fortnight, would my right hon. Friend be willing to have an early debate on the matter?

Does he agree that the undertainty generated by that delay is unfortunate for the management and employees of Rowntree?

Mr. Wakeham: I accept that delay and uncertainty should not be perpetuated longer than is necessary. However, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has said, we must also stick rigidly to the law, and I do not believe that a debate at this stage would be helpful.

Mr. Bob Cryer: Will the Leader of the House make a statement on the introduction of legislation to ensure that when people cross the floor, either in this place or in local councils, from one party to another they seek to maintain their mandate by going to the electorate again? This is a matter of political integrity. That would prevent political cheating when people who have been elected on one set of values in a manifesto then tear up that manifesto, kick the electorate in the teeth and cross the floor. Is it not reasonable for the electorate to expect legislation to require people to seek re-election when they do not have the guts to do it themselves?

Mr. Wakeham: It sounds to me as if the hon. Gentleman is trying to plug some holes in a sinking ship. I do not have any plans for such legislation.

Mr. Greg Knight: Further to the point raised by the hon. Member for Ashfield (Mr. Haynes), and in view of the large amount of time-wasting by Labour Members yesterday, including the raising of a large number of dubious points of order, does my right hon. Friend agree that, when the debate is resumed on the private Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes (Mr. Brown), there is a good case for allowing it to take place in Opposition time?

Mr. Wakeham: Standing Order No. 16 makes it clear how time should be apportioned between the Government and the Opposition. I have already said that, to date, six private Bills have been taken in Government time and only two in Opposition time. However, the questions that my hon. Friend has raised are for the Chairman of Ways and Means, and not for me.

Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: In light of the public concern that is now being expressed in Kent about reductions in public services, in education and in expenditure in parts of the hospital service in every part of Kent, will the Leader of the House give hon. Members, especially Labour Members, time to debate these matters? Our mail bags are increasingly being filled with correspondence from people who are angry about the Government's activities in Kent.

Mr. Wakeham: I thought that the hon. Gentleman was a Member for another beautiful part of the country, but perhaps he is not as welcome there as he was. I entirely reject what he has said about Kent. I know Kent very well, and a number of my hon. Friends who represent Kent constituencies recognise the many great achievements of the Government for the benefit of the people of that area.

Mr. Julian Brazier: I draw my right hon. Friend's attention to motion no. 14 on the Order Paper, which is in his name. If motion no. 14 had been debated and carried prior to last Friday, the sad events of that day would not have taken place because it would have prevented time wasting on petitions. I believe that it would


be a good thing for the standing of the House in the country if that motion were debated at the earliest opportunity to prevent Friday's sad events from happening again.

Mr. Wakeham: I agree with my hon. Friend. The motion reflects the views of the all-party Procedure Committee. I believe that the motion is generally acceptable as being the way forward. As I have said on many occasions, I deprecate the use of petitions as a means of filibustering.

Mr. Harold McCusker: Will the Leader of the House reflect on the statement that he made last week—he repeated it today—that it would not be right for the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to come to the House to make a statement following meetings of the Anglo-Irish Conference? What is not right about the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland doing what Prime Ministers and Foreign Secretaries have done regularly in this House since I became a Member? Is the right hon. Gentleman suggesting that, instead of the House being given an opportunity to probe the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland about his relationship with the Government of the Irish Republic, Members representing Northern Ireland will, if they crawl to Stormont Castle, be given their own private briefing? Is that what passes for British parliamentary democracy today?

Mr. Wakeham: I believe that the hon. Gentleman is trying to turn the particular into the general. I was talking about the particular position as it was last week. Of course, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland makes statements in this House and he will continue to do so. The basis for making Government statements is that the Government believe it is right that they should be made. I can only repeat what I have said before. My right hon. Friend is always ready to talk to hon. Members if they believe that that would be helpful.

Rev. William McCrea: Will the right hon. Gentleman reflect on the answer that he has given to my hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann (Mr. McCusker), bearing in mind that hon. Members from another party—the Social and Democratic Labour party—can run off to Dublin to see the Prime Minister of that country? He can tell them the full details of the matters that were raised and take them totally into his confidence. Yet the Members of this House who are Unionists cannot be trusted with the information, which I believe all hon. Members should be given. Will the right hon. Gentleman reflect upon his answer and give the House the courtesy that it deserves?

Mr. Wakeham: The duties of the Leader of the House do not extend as far as discussions that go on in Dublin. I will reflect upon what the hon. Gentleman has said if he undertakes to reflect upon what I have said: if he wishes to talk about such matters my right hon. Friend is ready and willing to see him.

Mr. Eddie McGrady: Has the Leader of the House had time to read recent authoritative press statements about the fact that 10 major nuclear power stations are defective in construction and are unsafe? Is he aware of the grave public concern that that has caused? Is

it the Government's intention to make a statement about those power stations, and are they prepared to give the House time to debate this serious matter?

Mr. Wakeham: I assure the hon. Gentleman that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy makes safety the highest priority in nuclear matters. If he thought that there was any cause for alarm or need to make a statement to the House, he would be the first to do so. I do not believe that there is any such necessity, but I shall certainly refer the hon. Gentleman's concern to my right hon. Friend.

Mr. Ian Bruce: Will my right hon. Friend give time for a debate on our former prisoners of war in the far east? There has been a lobby on that matter today and when I took a small party to the Japanese embassy I was enormously surprised to discover the public concern that still exists because these people have not been properly looked after and compensated. May we have time for a debate on this subject?

Mr. Wakeham: I recognise that there is concern about this matter. I cannot promise an early debate, but I shall refer the matter to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence.

Mr. Ken Eastham: I wish to raise with the Leader of the House a subject which has been discussed on a number of occasions, the Economic League. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that obvious blocking tactics are being employed in the Employment Select Committee to prohibit a proper investigation of that private espionage organisation, which has affected the livelihood of thousands of people? Is there some kind of cover-up, or does the Leader of the House intend to do something to bring about an end to this scandal?

Mr. Wakeham: The hon. Gentleman refers me to what is going on in the Employment Select Committee. What he said sounded to me as a slightly partial account of matters. I do not have responsibility for taking the Chair of the Employment Select Committee. It is not a matter for me.

Mrs. Teresa Gorman: When my right hon. Friend considers the request from the right hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris) concerning the New Zealand dairy industry, will he also bear in mind the plight of the New Zealand apple industry? It has several shiploads of extremely good New Zealand apples on the sea and they are likely to be banned from landing because of the new quotas that are being slapped on by the European Community. That is happening at a time when there is a growing shortage of good apples. If the ban operates, we will be eating pappy, rotten, Golden Delicious apples instead of good New Zealand apples.

Mr. Wakeham: I agree with my hon. Friend about the quality of New Zealand apples. I do not think that I can arrange a debate on the subject next week, but I shall certainly refer the matter to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.

Mr. Gerald Bermingham: Will the Leader of the House persuade his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport to make a statement to the House on the problem of cones and bollards on the M6 and the M 1? The right hon. Gentleman may not be aware that the number of contraflow systems on those two roads


is increasing, and there are dangers from service stations, with vehicles pouring into two-lane contraflow systems. A considerable number of people are killed on the roads during the summer. It is a matter of great importance for those of us who represent constituencies in the north-west.

Mr. Wakeham: I recognise that when unfortunately one gets into a traffic jam one tends to take a partial view of these matters, but 1 would have thought that the increase in expenditure on roads, and particularly on motorways, in this country was one of the Government's great achievements. I will refer the matter to my right hon. Friend.

Mr. Spencer Batiste: My right hon. Friend may recall that some weeks ago he made some sympathetic comments about the need for a debate on air traffic. Since then public concern about the number of air misses has increased and anxiety has been expressed over the difficulties of American airlines in running scheduled services to Manchester. There is a report under consideration about the extension of time for Leeds-Bradford airport. These are very important national and regional issues. When may we expect his expressions of sympathy to be translated into a debate?

Mr. Wakeham: The expressions of sympathy still apply, but I cannot foresee an early debate. However, it is important that all those factors are discussed when the opportunity presents itself, particularly as the substantial increase in air traffic and the far less substantial increase in risk is not fully appreciated by many people in this country.

Mr. Peter L. Pike: The Leader of the House will recall that before the general election last year the Environment Select Committee published a report on river and estuary pollution. As yet the Government have not published a response to that report, although it is way beyond the time limit allowed. Will he urge the Secretary of State to ensure that the report is published as soon as possible? Recognising the serious implications of the privatisation of water, if the Government press ahead with that legislation, will he seriously consider providing time for that report and the Government's response to it to be debated?

Mr. Wakeham: The hon. Gentleman is right in recognising that these are very important, serious matters and need properly to be considered. I am sorry if the Government's response has been delayed. I will refer the matter to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and see what can be done.

Mr. Nicholas Bennett: Returning to early-day motion 1086 about the circumstances concerning the Abortion (Amendment) Bill last week, will my right hon. Friend bear in mind the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) about the procedure of the House? Will he arrange for the Procedure Committee's motion to be brought before the House as soon as possible so that consideration may be given to the ways in which the procedure of the House can be changed to prevent a repetition of the time-wasting, filibustering disruption of the Bill last week so that we can come to a decision on this important matter?

Mr. Wakeham: My hon. Friend has noticed that the motion to re-establish the Select Committee on Procedure is on the Order Paper. I hope that it will be agreed within the next few days so that the Committee can start work.

Rev. Martin Smyth: Will the Leader of the House accept that my colleagues on this Bench would like to vote on the Abortion (Amendment) Bill and decide once and for all where we stand?
I have raised before the question of having a debate in the House on the role of the media in reporting terrorist incidents, and, more importantly, in providing a platform for exponents of terror. Can the right hon. Gentleman find time for us to debate that matter in the near future?
Since apparently it is not possible for the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to make a statement on the recent Anglo-Eire Conference meeting, is it possible for a debate on Northern Ireland to be arranged in the comparatively near future? If that cannot be done through the usual channels, perhaps the unusual channels will bring more success. Perhaps we could debate the novel doctrine that is now being propounded of the immutability of international agreements lodged at the United Nations, especially in light of the recent one between New Zealand and France.

Mr. Wakeham: If we had such a debate, it seems that the hon. Gentleman would have plenty to say. I take Hs point. I cannot promise him an early debate, but I shall certainly bear in mind what he has said.

Mr. Robert G. Hughes: My right hon. Friend will be aware that on Bank Holiday Monday a lump of aircraft fell in a garden in my constituency, a matter that is being investigated by the Department of Transport and the Civil Aviation Authority thoroughly and, so far, to the satisfaction of my constituents. Is he aware that the response from the airline, Iceland Air, is entirely a matter for that airline under the Civil Aviation Act 1980 and that its response so far can be described only as mean-minded, ungenerous and, frankly, uncaring? Will my right hon. Friend arrange a debate on whether the airlines should have greater responsibility for what happens to gardens and the areas over which they fly?

Mr. Wakeham: Since my hon. Friend has been a Member of the House he has shown himself to be a very adept user of the procedures of the House. May I suggest that what he has said may be an appropriate subject for an Adjournment debate?

Mr. Dennis Skinner: The Leader of the House has received a number of complaints from hon. Members about the Government giving more time for the Abortion (Amendment) Bill. Does he agree with me that in the time that we have been Members of the House many controversial Back-Bench Members' Bills have been introduced, and most of them have suffered the same fate? Bills about hare coursing and fox hunting and industrial relations Bills introduced by Opposition Members between 1976 and 1979 were defeated on the simple basis that if there is too much controversy about them it does not take too many people to stop them. I remember the Father of the House, the right hon. Member for Castle Point (Sir B. Braine), speaking for three hours to stop a Bill. This happens on both sides of the House.
I think that it should he clearly understood that if last Friday the hon. Member for Liverpool, Mossley Hill (Mr.


Alton) had been smart enough, as we suggested in the Lobby when we spoke about the matter, and voted in the opposite manner from the way he did, he might have had a forlorn hope of carrying it further, but he went into the wrong Lobby.

Mr. Wakeham: It is well worth the time of anybody seeking to understand properly the procedures of the House to have a private word with the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner). He has a better knowledge of the proceedings of the House than he has about a great many other things outside the House on which he expresses strong views from time to time.

Mr. Alan Meale: Is the Leader of the House aware that yet again hon. Members have had to put up with ministerial statements about the privatisation of public assets being made outside the House before they are discussed by the House, notably on the privatisation of the coal industry? Bearing in mind that most hon. Members do not agree with such action, will he find time very soon to debate coal mining subsidence, especially since the Select Committee report, the Government's response to that report and the consultation about the Government's response is imminent? It is vital that the issue is discussed in this Chamber.

Mr. Wakeham: My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Energy, who spoke about the possible privatisation of the coal industry, was not in any sense making a specific announcement about it. It is no secret that the Government believe that in the long term that would be a sensible, profitable and efficient way forward for those in the industry, but we recognise that privatisation would be technically and administratively a very complex and lengthy process and it could not happen in this Parliament. From time to time we find time for debates on the coal industry, but I cannot promise a debate in the near future.

Mr. Alex Salmond: Has the Leader of the House had time to examine early-day motion 1088 concerning the new political situation in Scotland since the district election results last week?
[That this House notes the results of the Scottish district elections, and in particular the performance of the Scottish National Party; notes that the Scottish National Party is now the second party in Scotland, having won 21·2 per cent. of the vote, compared with the Tories' 19·1 per cent.; notes that both Conservative and Labour parties suffered a fall in support despite both having increased their total number of candidates; notes that more Scots expressed ballot box support for a mass campaign of non-payment to resist the poll tax than voted to support the measure itself; further notes that the latest MORI opinion poll indicates levels of support for full Scottish independence running at a record high 35 per cent. among voters; and calls on Her Majesty's Government to provide Parliamentary time so that the new

political situation and the Government's lack of legitimacy in Scotland can properly be discussed by honourable Members.]
Given that the Conservative party is the third party in Scotland in terms of popular support, and is behind the Labour party and the Scottish National party, is it not time for a debate on the legitimacy of the Government's position and the imposition on the Scottish people of extremist policies which are so clearly rejected and unwanted?

Mr. Wakeham: I have to say to the hon. Gentleman, even if he knows it already, that 69 out of the 72 Scottish Members at Westminster were elected last June to represent the Scottish people as Unionists in the United Kingdom Parliament. There is no new political situation in Scotland. The Scottish National party had a record number of candidates, but it failed dismally to replace the Scottish Conservative party as the second force in Scottish politics. The SNP's policy of independence has consistently been rejected by the Scottish people.

Mr. Matthew Taylor: The Leader of the House will have probably seen the CEGB's announcement that it is going forward with plans for two new pressurised water reactor nuclear power stations. That is a matter of considerable concern to the House not only in terms of safety and viability but also because it pre-empts the decision of the House on the privatisation of the industry and the Government's intention to increase the input of independent suppliers and generators of electricity. Will he seek to make time available for the House to debate these moves by the CEGB?

Mr. Wakeham: Those are important matters and we shall no doubt debate them in one form or another. However, I should like to consider what is the best way forward, and I cannot promise an early debate.

Mr. Tam Dalyell: May we have a statement next week on who has ministerial or Cabinet responsibility for scolding, lecturing, hectoring and pontificating against the broadcasters—the BBC, the Independent Television Authority, Lord Thomson of Monifieth and the press? Is it the Home Secretary, who has preserved a discreet and genteel silence, is it the Foreign Secretary, or is it Mr. Ingham? May we have a statement on the precise role of Mr. Ingham? In particular, may we have an answer to the question whether his well-publicised statement last week about press hysteria was made on the authority of the Prime Minister? Was it done with her authority, or did he do it on his tod?

Mr. Wakeham: If there were any Minister with ministerial responsibility for scolding, I think that he would be tempted to scold rather nearer home than the media further away. When my right hon. Friends speak to the broadcasting authorities, they speak to them in a calm and responsible way. They put forward what they believe to be appropriate matters that should be considered. I do not recognise the language that the hon. Gentleman uses.

Dairy Crest Creamery, Llangefni

Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones: I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 20, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely,
the imminent loss of 200 jobs in the dairy industry in Wales, in the light of yesterday's decision on the implementation of the recent agreement between the Milk Marketing Board and the Dairy Trade Federation 
The matter is specific, in that it relates to the problems that have arisen over the sale of the Dairy Crest Creamery in Llangefni in my constituency. In January, Dairy Crest announced that the creamery would close on 31 March, with the loss of 46 jobs. The site has been marketed by the Welsh Development Agency on the basis that any buyer
could use the site to make any products, with the exception of butter and powdered milk.
On 28 April it seemed that the deal could go through, thus saving a substantial number of jobs in my constituency, yet within 24 hours the deal was put on ice because the Dairy Trade Federation, which entered into an agreement on rationalisation with the Milk Marketing Board and which owns Dairy Crest, objected to Dairy Crest being paid compensation if it sold the site to anybody who wished to use the milk.
It is an important matter because it has critical implications for the dairy industry, in that somebody who is prepared to purchase the site is apparently being blocked, due to the industry's big boys falling out. As not only jobs but the control of the dairy sector and the distribution of milk are at stake, the House should be given an opportunity to debate it.
It is an urgent matter, because yesterday talks between the parties—the Milk Marketing Board and the Dairy Trade Federation—broke down, and unless there is an early resumption of talks aimed at a resolution of the dispute, jobs in my constituency could be in jeopardy.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member for Ynys Mon (Mr. Jones) seeks leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 20, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that he thinks should have urgent consideration, namely,
the imminent loss of 200 jobs in the dairy industry in Wales, in the light of yesterday's decision on the implementation of the recent agreement between the Milk Marketing Board and the Dairy Trade Federation.
I have listened with concern to what the hon. Member has said, but I regret that I do not consider that the matter he has raised is appropriate for discussion under Standing Order No. 20. I cannot therefore submit his application to the House. I hope that he will find other ways of raising it.

Firearms (Amendment) Bill

Mr. William Ross: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You will have gathered from my questions to the Leader of the House that I am worried about the extension to Northern Ireland of certain clauses of the Firearms (Amendment) Bill. I seek your guidance on the procedure that may be used.
You will remember that in Committee these particular clauses and subsections were closely scrutinised, but only in the context of Great Britain. They are now to be extended to Northern Ireland. If that had happened initially, there would have been detailed discussions of the implications for Northern Ireland and Northern Ireland's firearms owners and dealers.
As the context of the legislation has been changed, would it be in order to table and to have selected the amendments that were selected and discussed in Committee so that the effect of this extension of the legislation to Northern Ireland can be fully considered?

Mr. Speaker: Before I could make a judgment, I should need to see the amendments. If the hon. Gentleman cares to submit his amendments, they will be considered in the usual way, with all the others. However, I note what he has said about the matter.

BILL PRESENTED

PALACE OF WESTMINSTER (REMOVAL OF CROWN IMMUNITY)

Ms. Joan Walley, supported by Mr. Frank Dobson, Mr. Allan Roberts, Mr. Donald Anderson, Ms. Joan Ruddock, Mr. Paul Flynn, Mr. Alistair Darling, Dr. John Marek, Mr. Calum Macdonald, Mr. Andrew Smith, Ms. Jo Richardson and Mr. Chris Smith, presented a Bill to remove Crown immunity from the Palace of Westminster in relation to the Health and Safety at Work &c. Act 1974, the Food Act 1984 and other enactments relating to public health and safety, and regulations made thereunder; and to make the Palace liable to inspection by the relevant enforcing authorities: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 8 July, and to be printed. [Bill 164.]

STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c

Ordered,
That the draft Housing Defects (Reinstatement Grant) (Amendment of Conditions for Assistance) (Scotland) Order 1988 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &amp;c.—[Mr. Lightbown.]

Prisons

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Lightbown.]

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Douglas Hurd): Last night just over 50,000 people were held in prisons or as prisoners in police cells in England and Wales. The prison system is designed to hold around 44,200. The result is that parts of the prison system are miserably and dangerously overcrowded. That is the heart of a problem as serious as any that confronts the Government on the domestic scene. So it is entirely right that Parliament should debate the problem and the Government's response.
Prisons are a world of which most people still prefer to know little. But silence and ignorance about prisons have in the past led to neglect. I have come to the conclusion that I would rather face criticism of the state of the prisons than silence. That is one reason why I decided last year to make possible the publication of individual reports of boards of visitors, such as the report on Wandsworth last month. Out of informed debate will come understanding of all that the prison service and the Government are doing to remedy the situation, and pressure to do more. If there had been proper debate in the mid-1970s, when crime was rising fast and the prisons filling, perhaps the right hon. Member for Morley and Leeds, South (Mr. Rees) and his predecessor would not have had to cut the prison building programme in the way that they did. I welcome the opportunity to set out briefly what we are doing first to restrain the growth of the prison population in ways that have to be reconciled with the independence of magistrates and judges and, second, to increase and speed up the provision of prison places.
Let me first deal with one distortion that sometimes creeps in. The problem is not unique to the United Kingdom. Figures are not strictly comparable, but the most recent information shows that the prison population per 100,000 inhabitants in the United Kingdom, at 96, was the fourth highest among Council of Europe states; for seven of these member states, including France and Germany, the rate was over 80 per 100,000 inhabitants. I believe that our imprisonment rate is lower than that of Canada and well below that of the United States, which had a prison population of about 300 per 100,000 inhabitants in 1985, compared with our 96. Our prison population has been growing much more slowly in the past four years than that of France, Holland, Ireland or Portugal. We have plenty of problems, but I hope that we shall hear no more of the notion that our prison system is in some way uniquely severe or barbarous; it is not.

Mr. Robert Maclennan: The right hon. Gentleman said that his objective is to restrain the growth of inmate numbers in prison. Is he aware that many who know a great deal about the prison system believe not simply that the rate of growth should be restrained but that the prison population should be reduced? Is that not even the medium-term target of the Government?

Mr. Hurd: If the hon. Gentleman catches your eye, Mr. Speaker, I shall be fascinated to hear how he intends to do that in a way that can be reconciled with the independence of magistrates and judges. I am sure that he favours that

independence. He might be able to explain to the House how he would propose to reconcile the two. I hope to cover the point in greater substance later. Before that, I shall analyse briefly the composition of the 50,000 people in prison or police cells.
In round numbers, 11,000 have not been sentenced, and have been refused bail awaiting trial or sentence. That remand population has nearly doubled since 1980. Some 15,000 of the 50,000 have been sentenced for violent offences and the rest are in prison for non-violent offences. Of those, 9,000 are burglars and 7,000 are in prison for theft and related offences.
Before I come to the different categories, I shall underline a crucial principle, which bears on what the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) has said. The Lord Chancellor, the Attorney-General and the Home Secretary preside in different ways over an amazingly decentralised criminal justice system, each component of which is proud and jealous of its independence. The Lord Chancellor does not direct the judges, the Attorney-General does not direct the lawyers and I do not direct the police. The public, even hon. Members, are often surprised at the limits in our powers.
I am not in favour of centralising those powers. I am strongly in favour of the different parts of the system getting to know the other parts better. Magistrates and judges, for example, ought to know better than they sometimes do what actually follows when a burglar is sent to prison in 1988. Probation officers ought to be able to read the minds of magistrates and understand why they sometimes reject advice against a prison sentence couched in the vocabulary of the social worker.
My colleagues and I are working hard to intensify these contacts and to show each of the professions in the criminal justice system that isolation is not a necessary condition of independence. We want to break down the isolation, but not undermine the independence. I believe that it would be wrong for me to seek to prevent the courts from sending to prison those for whom they believe, after considering all the alternatives, prison to be the right place.
Parliament has provided powers to authorise the early release of certain inmates, that is, those not convicted of serious offences of a violent nature or involving drugs. Parliament thought that those powers should be available. But we have always made it clear that they are for use in an emergency and not simply to keep the prison population below some arbitrary figure. Here I differ from the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland, as I do not believe that it is for the Home Secretary to say, "There are only 44,000 decent places in the prison system; therefore you, the judiciary, must not send more people to prison than that, however convinced you are that a prison sentence is necessary in a particular case for deterrence, punishment or the protection of the public."
However, I can hope to provide sentencers with more persuasive options outside prison. For the rest, we need to supply the prison places that the sentences of the court require. It is the courts, not the Government, who decide who should go to prison. We have to ensure as a Government, and indeed as a Parliament, that the courts have a range of penalties available to them so that they can give suitable sentences to the wide variety of offenders who come before them. But it is for the courts to weigh all the circumstances of each offence, to take account of aggravating and mitigating factors and then to fix the sentence.

Mr. Stuart Holland: Does the Home Secretary agree that some of the alternatives could be bail hostels or drug and alcohol rehabilitation centres, which would give options to the courts for independent decisions? The right hon. Gentleman is aware that I am especially concerned about the conditions in Brixton prison. For example, there have been 27 deaths by suicide or misadventure in the remand prison since 1981. There is a special problem in F wing. Can the right hon. Gentleman assure me, further to his written answer to me of 13 April, that he will undertake a public inquiry into the conditions in F wing and the deaths that have occurred in the past two years?

Mr. Hurd: Suicides are a tragedy and a disaster wherever they occur, and particularly when they occur in prison. I am especially concerned about the position in Risley and Brixton prisons. Difficulties are greatest in those remand centres for reasons that the hon. Gentleman knows. Last year we introduced a new strategy for the prevention of suicide among inmates. The hon. Gentleman knows the details. It is fixed on the idea that more contact and care by staff, and the care that prisoners can take among themselves when a possibility of suicide has been identified, will make suicides less likely.
It is too early to be sure how this strategy is working. Last year was a very bad year for suicides in the prison system. So far this year there have been 10 apparent suicides, unfortunately including one yesterday, compared with 19 at this stage in 1987. It is too early to be sure how well the new strategy is working, but we certainly have to keep it under particular review, not so much prison by prison, although that comes into it, but in the general strategy.

Mr. Gerald Bermingham: rose—

Mr. Hurd: I want to get on. I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman later; I may well cover prison regimes again later and perhaps he could interrupt me then.
I turn to the 15,000 violent offenders in prison. I do not believe that there is scope for reducing the numbers of this category in prison until the number of violent offences begins to come down. Indeed, the increasing severity of sentences in respect of serious violence certainly reflects the revulsion which we all feel generally about such crimes, particularly when the victims are the elderly or children. Since 1980, the length of Crown court sentences for offences of violence committed by men over 21 has increased by 12 per cent. The increase for offences of robbery has been particularly marked at 21 per cent. Nine out of 10 men convicted of robbery in the Crown court are sent to prison. The Crown court is more likely than it was to send men convicted of sexual offences to prison and to keep them there longer. The average sentence for rape has increased by 30 per cent. in the past two years. In the Criminal Justice Bill we propose to give the Court of Appeal the power to increase sentences for serious offences when referred to them by the Attorney-General, on the ground that they appear waywardly lenient.
I would put drug trafficking in the same category of seriousness. We have increased the maximum penalties for drug trafficking and that has been reflected by longer sentences in the courts. One of the results has been a significant increase in the number of women in prison serving longer sentences for drug offences. Unfortunately, traffickers tend to pick out women and use them as their

couriers because they hope that women are less likely to be detected. In the Government's view, there is a substantial category for which prison sentence„ and in some cases longer prison sentences are inevitable and necessary. For the 23,000 prisoners whose offences are not violent, the policy must be different. It is not self-evident that all these men and women should be in prison.
We need to build on the many excellent programmes that some probation services have already developed for supervising high-risk offenders based on the probation order. We are encouraging an expansion in the number of day centres in England and Wales. We have made available new money to approve four new projects in 1988–89. We have asked the probation service to put forward proposals for other new projects in later years. Probation committees have been told that priority will be given to approving those new projects which target young adults and offer strict, structured regimes, aimed at reducing reoffending. Such schemes make young adults face the consequences of their offending behaviour and aim to alter criminal attitudes. Some offenders may need closer supervision, especially at the start of the order.
I am also particularly keen to support the development of community service orders. That is one of the major achievements of the probation service. We have decided that the time has come to draw the reins a bit tighter. We want to bring practice in all parts of the country up to the standard of the best. That is why we circulated draft national standards for the operation of community service schemes. We want to ensure that community service is rigorous and demanding. The need for frequent and punctual reporting is part of the discipline imposed by the order. The work to be done should be useful and bring benefit to the community. There is no reparation if the work itself is pointless. Ideally, the public should be able to see the results of the work and, in the process, the offender's self-discipline and motivation should be improved.
Imagine the case of the young opportunist burglar whose burglary involves no violence. His offence is still serious. The court will always want to consider the nature of the offence, consider the victim, and look hard at the offender. If the court decides that he must go to prison, we should not make that impossible, and we must provide a prison place. It is true that while he is in prison he will not burgle the citizen, and that is a powerful argument in the minds of the police, the judiciary and the decent citizen. But if, by putting him in a cell at great expense for a few months, with one or two other burglars, we simply turn out a more skilful and enterprising burglar, the citizen may actually have struck a rather poor bargain—a worse bargain, perhaps, than if the man had been sentenced to a severe but useful punishment in the community. The courts should make that choice case by case, but with options before them that are much more persuasive than those that they have at the moment.
Then there are the 11,000—this is my final category—who are awaiting trial or sentence. That is too high a figure. No hon. Member would believe that that is a sensible figure. It is more than one in five of the total. I cannot advise magistrates on individual decisions on bail. We have looked at the Bail Act 1976, and we think that the balance in it is right. Magistrates know that we would wish to reduce the remand population and provide proper support to magistrates so that they are able to make the best possible decisions on bail. There is plenty of scope for


better information through bail information schemes. I am also providing resources for about nine new bail hostels. We are considering whether some others could be privately managed. The Lord Chancellor is preparing improved training for magistrates on bail decisions. Yesterday, I issued to magistrates courts a circular bringing together the threads of these developments.
The continuing rise in the remand population has been caused in part by the increased time that individuals have spent in custody awaiting trial. That is why, under the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985, we took power to introduce statutory time limits in England and Wales. We first exercised that power in April last year and monitored the effects of the time limits and the first results have been encouraging.
On 1 April, I extended custody time limits to Greater Manchester, throughout Wales, to Cheshire, Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, and Wiltshire, reduced the limit to committal in the west midlands from 98 to 84 days, and extended the operation of limits to Coventry and Dudley Crown court centres. We shall continue to phase in the time limits and hope that, by 1990, they will be in force throughout England and Wales. When we can actually move them downwards—tighten up the times—we shall do so. That should lead to a fall of up to 600 in the remand population.
I have dealt with the first objective, which is how to restrain the growth or, if we can, reduce the size of the prison population, while respecting the independence of magistrates and judges. I now refer to the other side of the policy, which is the provision of prison places. We have had to put in hand a major programme to bring that about, because, unlike our predecessors, we regard it as a duty that we must face. In the years since 1979, expenditure on the prison service has risen in real terms, after inflation, by 43 per cent. That compares with an increase of 11 per cent. between 1974 and 1979.
The figures are even more dramatic for expenditure on prison building, including the refurbishment of existing establishments. Under the Labour Government, there was a decrease of 35 per cent. in real terms in such expenditure. In contrast, since 1979, expenditure on prison building has risen by 117 per cent. in real terms. When one puts it into actual cash, one sees that the figures are getting large. This year, financial provision is £802 million. We plan to increase it to £937 million by 1990–91. That increase will enable us to carry through the biggest prison building programme this century, gradually to improve the conditions in which prisoners are held and to try to reduce the problem of severe overcrowding, which has existed in many of our prisons for many years.

Mr. Charles Irving: I wonder whether the Home Secretary is satisfied that the rebuilding programme is in the right, competent, professional hands. On a recent visit, we saw for ourselves the appalling design of Holloway C wing. It is detrimental to those who work in the prison and to the inmates. It is scandalous. Only a few days ago, there was a report of a new prison being built for £30 million. Building faults have already appeared. The design will certainly not improve the quality of life of those who work in the prison or of those who must be there. Is there not something wrong with a system that can allow

buildings of that kind to continue at vast public expense when, in some cases, they are worse than the buildings that have been replaced?

Mr. Hurd: My hon. Friend carries his argument too far. It is certainly true that, in the 1960s and, perhaps, early 1970s, prison design in this country went through a phase that everybody now regrets. There were attempts to build prisons in ways that proved to be unsuitable. We have learnt a lesson in two respects. The present designs, including the design of Full Sutton, are considerably better than they were. Full Sutton prison was designed four and a half years ago. One is continually learning. We cannot constantly interfere with the design of a prison while it is being built or we will never get it. I am coming to the ways in which we are improving designs and improving and accelerating the provision of prison places. I am satisfied that Full Sutton, which is the prison to which my hon. Friend was referring, is a wholly secure prison. When he visits it, as I hope that he will before long, he will be impressed by it. I hope that he will be even more impressed as the years pass and we open prisons that are designed even later.
I return to the point that I had reached. The programme will provide 26 new prisons by the mid-1990s. But that is not enough. We must also—this meets my hon. Friend's point—modernise and improve what we already have, much of which is in a bad way. The refurbishment and expansion of existing establishments will provide a further 8,000 places by 1995 and start to bring the prison estate up to 20th century standards. We shall be providing 22,000 new places by the mid-1990s, at a cost of about £1 billion. That is improvement of quality as well as of quantity.
We have to tackle the degrading practice of slopping out. By 1995, about 75 per cent. of prison places will have access to sanitation, compared with just 43 per cent. in 1979. The main obstacle to faster progress on sanitation, which is crucial, is the need to move all the prisoners from a wing to enable integral sanitation to be installed. There has to be somewhere to move the prisoners to, and that can cause disruption in the very establishments that suffer most from the growth in population. In response to that worry, we are beginning soon two pilot schemes, in Brixton and Wandsworth, to test the feasibility of a new way of installing sanitation that will not require the closure of wings and could be achieved separately from bigger refurbishment plans.
I do not believe that it is sensible to be content with financial figures, as if we were simply throwing money at the problem. We have to achieve greater efficiency in prison building. We have set up a design brief team to update and rationalise prison design. The Prisons Building Board, which has a private sector element, will supervise delivery of the programme. I am urgently considering how we can involve the private sector more closely in the prison system. The new Prisons Building Board includes three business men with strong practical experience. It has invited the private sector to make proposals for building remand or open facilities more quickly than in the past. We have already had over 30 responses. I intend before long to publish a Green Paper on private sector involvement in all aspects of the remand system, including possible management. We are engaging consultants to help in working out the practical implications.
Meanwhile, as the House knows from the exchanges that we had just before Easter, we have run seriously short of space. The continual growth of the prison population has put pressure on regimes in all parts of the system. I have mentioned the pressures on living accommodation and sanitary facilities, which lead to interruptions in education classes, workshops and other worthwhile activities.
The number committed to prison by the courts was rising at a rate equivalent to the population of an average-sized prison every few weeks during the earlier part of this year. As an unavoidable, but undesirable, overflow, more and more prisoners were being held in police cells. That number reached the very high figure of 1,575 early in March. Therefore, urgent short-term action was necessary to prevent a breakdown in the prisons and reduce the burden on the police. That is why I announced to the House the opening of two army camps in the south—at Rollestone on Salisbury plain, which my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary visited yesterday, and at Alma Dettingen, near Camberley—as temporary prisons, for a matter of months, to house about 700 prisoners.
I should like to pay a tribute to all those concerned for the enormous efforts made in converting these camps and bringing them into use very quickly indeed. Rollestone opened on 25 April and Alma Dettingen on 9 May. Partly as a result of that, but only partly, the number of prisoners in police cells has fallen, I am glad to say, from that peak of 1,575 to 957 yesterday. It is still far too high and I shall not be happy until the use of police cells for prisoners is regarded as something exceptional and temporary.

Mr. Robert Key: I am sorry that, unavoidably, I missed the first part of my right hon. Friend's speech. Could he comment on the fact that the Wiltshire county council's social services department and probation service have also been involved in the Rollestone camp and have played a very important part, particularly those seconded from Evlestoke open prison?

Mr. Hurd: One of the reasons why I decided that we should open Rollestone again was precisely the co-operation that we had on an earlier occasion from all the authorities in Wiltshire, and the generally good relations that were built up with my hon. Friend's constituents. I gladly thank, through him, all those who have been involved again.
It is not just a question of buildings and emergency arrangements such as I have described. A rising prison population needs not only more buildings but more staff, and we have increased the number of prison officers by 22 per cent. over a period when the number of inmates has increased by 15 per cent. So, contrary to the impression that one sometimes receives from some people, the ratio has been steadily improving.
I am very well aware of staffing difficulties in a number of prisons. Recruitment of prison officers is at its highest ever level. Last year we recruited 1,860 officers to deal with wastage and meet the needs of new work. This year we plan to recruit a further 1,360 over and above replacements needed for people who leave or retire. In addition, more will be needed to staff the new accommodation that I announced in my statement of 30 March. We are committed to providing the staff that the service needs and there will he a continuing demand for recruits to staff new accommodation.
But prison staffing is not just a matter of numbers. We have to make the best use of the staff available and ensure that they enjoy the right terms and conditions of service for their demanding work. That is why over the past year we have brought about a radical change in the way that the prison service is organised and run.
Fresh Start is our response to a service that was beset by an increasing workload and costs and hampered by inefficient and inflexible systems and structures. Those who were managing it were frustrated by the rigidities, waste and obstacles built into the system. Staff, highly committed though they are, were faced with long working hours and little job satisfaction. We are bringing about: a huge change, comparable with any change in the public or private sector during this time. Fresh Start is what it says—a chance to start again—and the service is, with difficulty, getting to grips with this fact and seizing the opportunities that if offers to improve life for staff.

Mr. Bermingham: I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will accept my question in the spirit in which it is intended. In the calculation of staff required for the foreseeable future, did his Department take into account that, with the increasing detection rate by the police forces in the United Kingdom, there will be an increasing number of prisoners, because there will be more convictions in the courts?

Mr. Hurd: I am glad that the hon. Member agrees that the clear-up rate is improving. He is certainly right in that. As we try to plan the future under different possibilities and try to take into account the aspects that may change over the coming years, of course we take that fact into account.
I was dealing with Fresh Start—

Mr. Tim Devlin: I am sorry to interrupt my right hon. Friend just before he finishes, but what he was saying goes back to what was said earlier about the buildings that we are using. One of the things that I had hoped for today was to hear that one day we might start pulling down some of the Victorian prisons or, if we cannot do that, at least installing some of the electronic door-keeping techniques, and so on, that are used in the United States so that we do not need to have vast numbers of prison officers in every establishment arid can make the best use of the staff that is available.

Mr. Hurd: We have to make the best use of the staff that is available, but I think that my hon. Friend will acknowledge that contact between staff and inmates is an important part of running a successful prison. Lack of contact between staff and inmates is not a sensible way of averting suicides, for example. But I agree with my hon. Friend's general point. The sooner we pull down in some cases, but in more cases improve, the old prisons, the better we shall be pleased. My hon. Friend is setting a very good example by encouraging me to find a place for a prison in his constituency. I hope that other hon. Members, as they see the advantages of having a modern prison, with the prosperity that surrounds it, as I saw at Full Sutton, will follow my hon. Friend's useful example.

Mr. John Browne: Will my right hon. Friend accept that one important aspect of the morale of prison officers is that they should be allowed the same right to buy their homes as other people have? In my constituency there has been inordinate delay in allowing


prison officers to exercise their right to buy their quarters. Will my right hon. Friend look into the matter personally to ensure that prison officers' rights are maintained?

Mr. Hurd: I shall look into the position. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary may be able to say something about that matter when he replies to the debate.
One of the main purposes of Fresh Start is to provide a firm basis for the regime of the prisoner. The greater flexibility provided by group working under Fresh Start, coupled with clear definition and distribution of activities, offers more certainty. For example, once Fresh Start systems are working effectively, there should be far fewer occasions when work in the workshops or classes is disrupted because there is a trial on and prison officers have to do escort duty.

Mr. William Cash: My right hon. Friend may be interested to know that I was in Stafford prison only three days ago and I had consultations about Fresh Start. He may be glad to hear that it has gone down extremely well there, despite the fact that it is an old prison. Although the abattoir site needs to be refurbished, we will be glad to have an improvement in Stafford over the next few years.

Mr. Hurd: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. It is always encouraging to receive confirmation of the advice that I get from my own advisers.
I am beginning—and I do not put it higher than that—to hear about examples from across the country of how time spent on education in the prison service has increased by 6 per cent. during the day and by 7 per cent. in the evening. There has been evening association for prisoners at Manchester for the first time in years. More time is being spent on visits at Leeds. To confirm what my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Cash) said, industrial workshop time at Stafford is up by at least 20 per cent. However, there are many places where the improvement in regimes has not yet occurred. Because the news in the media is almost always gloomy on this point, I have picked out the cases where Fresh Start is beginning to produce one of its main objectives, which is an improvement in the regime as a prison is better run.
As every hon. Member who speaks in the debate will probably illustrate, the prison service faces demands on an unprecedented scale. Although we have arguments with the Prison Officers Association, I pay tribute to the way in which the staff of the service are, on the whole, responding to the challenge. The Government have a commitment, and we have asked Parliament for a commitment to the service, partly in terms of money and partly in terms of fresh thinking and of clear and sustained decisions.
As I said, since 1979 we have increased expenditure on the prison service by 43 per cent. in real terms. The size of the continuing problem is there for all to see. Although the total crime figures are less daunting than they were, the offences for which a prison sentence is normal are still rising. When the House last debated prisons in 1986 we looked back on several days of disastrous riot and destruction. Today we are looking forward to our programme extricating a crucial public service from great difficulty and putting it on a firm road. That is some progress. So far as it is in my power, I intend to sustain that progress.

Mr. Roy Hattersley: The Opposition welcome the debate. I congratulate the Home Secretary not only on initiating it but on the tone, if not always the content, of his speech. For some reason which I have never been able to understand, the Home Secretary does not always welcome my political embrace, so I shall say no more in congratulation to him than that I look forward to watching him on television making a speech in similar tone to the Conservative party conference in October.
As the Home Secretary will gladly confirm, the crisis in our prisons did not begin last year or the year before. In every year of this decade in its annual report, Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Prisons has warned the Government, in the strongest terms, about overcrowding and the consequences of overcrowding. In 1981 the report described it as
a major problem in its own right and the direct cause of many of the suffocating difficulties which beset the system".
In 1982 it
loomed as large if not larger than the year before".
In 1984 it "remained a major problem".
In 1985, in perhaps the most damning criticism of all, the inspectors said that there was
little new to say about it except that it had worsened considerably".
By 1986, according to the inspectors,
breaking point was reached in many prisons".

Mr. Devlin: The overcrowding has been caused because the Administration of which the hon. Gentleman was a member cancelled the prison building programme.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): Order. May I remind the House that this is a short debate which must finish at 7 o'clock. Interventions are made only at the expense of the speeches of other hon. Members.

Mr. Hattersley: I shall heed your advice, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I suggest to the hon. Member for Stockton, South (Mr. Devlin) that, if he is called later, he should try to rise to the Home Secretary's level and say something constructive rather than make petty political points.
During the last decade the prison population has risen by almost 20 per cent. This contradicts the point that the hon. Gentleman has just made. It has been during the last decade that the prison population has risen by 20 per cent. and that has caused the emergency. The prison population was 42,000 in 1979, 46,000 in 1985, 48,000 in 1987 and 50,000 in March of this year. In response to that the Government have initiated a major programme of prison building. From time to time they have taken emergency action, ranging from early release to the use of army camps.
A substantial building programme is necessary. The Government deserve to be congratulated on bringing forward the programme, which, with one major reservation, should be welcomed, and I welcome it. My one reservation—here I come to the error made by the hon. Member for Stockton, South—is that the building programme alone will not solve the problem. We must not be trapped into the illusion of believing that.
The problem of prison overcrowding in some areas over the last year may have been exacerbated by the dispute between the prison officers and the Home Office. Lord Ferrers, speaking in another place, was explicit about a


more fundamental cause which I know the Home Secretary wishes to address and which I, too, will attempt to address. Explaining the reason why remand prisoners were in police cells, Lord Ferrers described the prison service as being temporarily overwhelmed by the high level of population growth. That was part of the reason—a part that the Government can hardly claim took them by surprise.
Equally important were two other factors: first, the unremitting increase in crime during the past decade; and, secondly, the fact that in Great Britain we send too many people to prison, we keep too many of them in prison for too long, and we imprison them in conditions which make it likely that they will return to a life of crime. The Home Secretary did not altogether convince me that he is ready to tackle head on the fundamental problem of too many people going to prison, not least because of his interestingly selective use of international comparisons.
I want to give the Home Secretary the figures at which he half hinted, but which he did not spell out. In the United Kingdom we have 96 prisoners for every 100,000 members of the population. In France the figure is 89, and falling. In West Germany it is 84, and falling. In Belgium it is 69, in Denmark 69, in Spain 67, in Italy 57, in Sweden 57 and in Holland 37. In the United States and Canada the figures are higher, but included in their figures are men and women in institutions which in this country would probably not be classified as prisons.
I shall deal later with those institutions, which are for drug offenders—not traffickers, but users—for alcoholics and for the incapable or the simple misfits in society. If we had such institutions, our society would be a great deal better and our prison system more effective. However, the United Kingdom sends more people to prison than any other country in western Europe.

Mr. Hurd: As a proportion of the population.

Mr. Hattersley: Yes, indeed, but I do not believe that there is anything inherent in the British character which makes a custodial sentence peculiarly appropriate to the British criminal. However, on historical evidence, there is something about the prejudices of the British Establishment—no matter which political party they may come from—that makes the Establishment believe that long prison sentences are the way to reduce crime. On all the evidence available, the opposite is true.

Mr. Hurd: On the statistical point, we were second and we are now fourth. Three other countries in the Council of Europe are now ahead of us on the proportionate comparison that the right hon. Gentleman is making. Our prison population has been increasing more slowly in recent years than what of four or five other countries, including France and Ireland.

Mr. Hattersley: If the figures that I possess are correct, the right hon. Gentleman is right in saying that there are two countries where the proportion is worse than ours. Without any reservations, I concede that Austria is one of those countries. I am informed that the other is Turkey.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Douglas Hogg): Another is Luxembourg.

Mr. Hattersley: I give the hon. Gentleman Luxembourg—[interruption].I congratulate him on mentioning

Luxembourg. I am prepared to play the statistics game. I challenge his Luxembourg with my Federal Republic of Germany. When the examples quoted by Conservative Members are Austria, which I concede, Luxembourg, which I suppose is important, and Turkey, which I do riot include in my definition of a democratic state of Western Europe, the case is overwhelmingly on my side.
What is equally incontrovertible is that the enthusiasm for custodial sentences has increased recently. In the late 1970s, 16 per cent. of adult males convicted of indictable offences were sent to prison. In 1986, the figure increased to 21 per cent. Together with the changes in regulations governing bail and parole—to which I shall turn in a moment—that has resulted in the most grotesque prison overcrowding. In January of this year, there were 18,406 prisoners sharing cells which were designed for single occupation. In fact, anyone who visits our old prisons knows that we are holding prisoners in conditions the Victorians would not have tolerated. There is no training, inadequate recreation, infrequent bathing and minimum visits. That does not deter crime—it breeds it. I accept that the Home Secretary can point to examples of prisons where conditions have improved, but the overall picture is appalling.
In the past, the Home Secretary has responded to calls for fewer and shorter custodial sentences with the reply that he supports stiff punishment for crimes of violence and burglary. So do we all. Building on what the Home Secretary has said, I include in that category an offence that requires strong action—drug trafficking. But prisoners convicted of those offences make up only a comparatively small part of the prison population—less than one in five of the number of men and women convicted in any one year. Of the 86,153 men and women given custodial sentences last year, only 16,371 were convicted of extremely serious offences. Our argument is that the petty offenders, the inadequates and the fine defaulters should be given non-custodial sentences or should serve considerably shorter periods in gaol. I shall make other proposals later in my speech about bail and remand, but our central concern is sentencing policy.
Some hon. Members will regard my argument as soft-hearted. They delude themselves if they believe that custodial sentences reduce petty crime, especially custodial sentences served in present conditions. The idea that a young man leaves prison chastened and repentant is all too often a romantic myth. Often, he leaves deeply embittered. Since visiting is now down in some prisons to half an hour a month, he often leaves prison with a need to rebuild a relationship with his family. We know that one of the causes of renewed criminality is the discharged prisoner's inability to re-establish a relationship with the family he left behind and to receive the necessary support from that family.
The way in which we presently organise our prisons—a man who has been sentenced to a year's imprisonment will see his wife, perhaps, for six hours during that period—makes it almost impossible for released prisoners to settle down to normal life and receive the support from their families that is necessary if they are to avoid criminality. I remind the House:
The worst effect of prison overcrowding and poor regimes is not that they make the prisoners more uncomfortable, but that they make them more likely to re-offend.


Those are not my words, but the words of the Home Secretary; and they are true. The only way in which we can avoid a regime which encourages and increases criminality—the regime that the Home Secreatry so accurately described—rather than reduces it is to cut the prison population.
Yet, year by year, prison conditions continue to deteriorate because of overcrowding. I have read—it made unpleasant reading—the Bow board of visitors most recent report on Wandsworth prison, in which it describes conditions of almost unbelievable squalor. The degradation involved in imprisonment there must breed crime. It must have an intolerable effect on the prison officers who work in that prison. Having read that report last night, it did not surprise me to learn at lunchtime today that there was a dispute in that prison this morning. How the prison officers can tolerate it and the prisoners survive is something which anyone who reads that report will find difficult to understand. That prison is not alone in being described in that way by its board of visitors.
The report of the Leicester visitors came to a simple conclusion. It stated:
We regard it as increasingly irresponsible to rely on an annual miracle and luck to run a prison.
Yet the Government are not taking the radical steps needed to reduce overcrowding and—by parliamentary answer—have formally abandoned their commitment to a code of minimum standards in our prisons, even for eventual implementation.
A month ago I visited the probation service in west Yorkshire, where I saw the result of a scheme which it is running in Dewsbury and its success with young offenders with two or three convictions. On the evidence provided, young men given non-custodial sentences are less likely to commit a further offence than their contemporaries who were sent to prison for similar crimes. The non-custodial sentences imposed by the local courts were neither painless nor easily discharged. They almost invariably involved some sort of restitution to the community or to the individuals against whom the offences had been committed. The clear conclusion from the Dewsbury experience was that non-custodial sentences are not so much the soft option but the sensible option for society. No one wants what the Home Secretary weakly described as a licence to offend again. However, it is sensible from the community's point of view to see extensions of community service orders, day centres and those systems which are cheaper than prison and have a better result for the community than prison now offers.

Mr. Greg Knight: Does the right hon. Gentleman disagree with the statement that the courts must also react to the perception of the need for higher penalties when necessary, because that was recently said by his right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Aberavon (Mr. Morris)? Are we seeing yet another split in the Labour party?

Mr. Hattersley: I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman was here, or whether he was sharpening his tiny political axe, when I explained that, for a variety of offences, severe punishment and therefore considerable sentences were necessary. The distinction that I am trying to draw is between those sentences which are appropriately long and those which are unnecessarily long. I remind the

hon. Gentleman that normally, when such matters are discussed, it is the Home Secretary's habit to insist that the length of sentence is a matter not for him but for the court. Indeed, he has said that today. That is at least disingenuous.
First, it is up to the Home Secretary, as he conceded today in part of his speech, to make available suitable alternatives, such as supervised release. Until there is a universal pattern of available alternatives, the Home Secretary must take some responsibility for the custodial sentences that the courts impose.
Secondly, it is possible for the Government to advise the judiciary, through the Lord Chancellor, of their views on the efficiency, efficacy and necessity of long sentences.
Thirdly, and most importantly, the Home Secretary is responsible for creating the sentencing climate. Nobody wants him to direct the judiciary, because that would be quite intolerable. However, he does have an influence over its actions, although it may be oblique and indirect.
The Home Secretary and his immediate predecessors have created a climate in which the judges—who, whatever they may pretend, are only human—have come to believe that long custodial sentences are what society expects of them. That climate has been not simply created by the public statements of successive Home Secretaries but propagated by some of their actions. It is indisputable that decisions made by the Home Secretary's predecessors have directly contributed to the number of men and women who are now held in British prisons.
In 1981 Lord Whitelaw came to the House with a proposal for supervised early release, not as an emergency but as part of the process of custodial sentences. We welcomed and supported the proposal that prisoners serving sentences for the least serious offences would be discharged under supervision before the full sentence was completed. Unfortunately, the Conservative party conference did not and, as a result, the proposal was abandoned. Now, seven years later, I understand that the Parole Review Committee, under the chairmanship of Lord Carlisle—a committee that I thought would have rated a mention during the Home Secretary's speech but did not—may recommend a scheme identical to that which the then Home Secretary brought to the House seven years ago.
Supervised release for prisoners serving two years or less, on the Whitelaw pattern, would cut the prison population by 6,000. Were it applied to prisoners serving three-year sentences or less, the prison population would be reduced by about 8,000. I can only hope that the Home Secretary has more success with the Conservative party conference than was enjoyed by his distinguished predecessor seven years ago.
I hope that the Home Secretary will face the real issues with greater determination than was shown by his immediate predecessor, the right hon. and learned Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Brittan). The right hon. and learned Gentleman changed the rules governing parole. Those changes have produced an increase of about 2,000 in the prison population. That increase is indisputably and directly the Government's responsibility.
The Home Secretary is more guilty of sins of omission than commission. His failure is that he has not dealt with another major cause of prison overcrowding—the increase in the numbers of remand prisoners, who, according to his figures this afternoon, make up 11,000 out of, say, a prison population of 50,000.
I do not want to weary the House with the principles involved in the matter except to say that in a free society remand prisoners, who are by definition innocent until a trial proves otherwise, should be brought to that trial as speedily as possible. I simply draw attention to the practical implications of extended remand. I want to ask the Home Secretary a simple question that I hope the Under-Secretary of State will answer when he replies to the debate. It is now almost five years since the Government obtained the power to require men and women held on remand to be brought to trial within a specified time. That rule has been applied with conspicuous success for many years in Scotland. The Home Secretary now applies the principle timidly, area by area, in England and Wales. Why does he not make it a general rule and, as a result, substantially reduce the prison population?
I know that the Home Secretary is concerned about the workings of the prosecution system. However, the difficulties that might arise from the rule being applied universally would not be cumulative. To put it simply, by applying the rule across all London the problems, real or imaginary, that have been created by its application in parts of London would not increase. His timidity results in unnecessary and unacceptable pressure on the whole system.
It is unacceptable for reasons of principle as well as practice. Of the prisoners remanded in custody, 38 per cent. of the men and 62 per cent. of the women who are refused bail are later acquitted or given non-custodial sentences. Clearly a larger proportion of those remand prisoners should be held on bail.
Yesterday the Minister of State sent out information which was described as being
designed to assist the courts in bail decisions.
The Home Secretary referred to that in passing, if at all. It refers to the
need for consistency of approach.
I hope that I am not doing the courts an injustice when I say that by referring to the
need for consistency of approach,
the Minister was treating them gently. At the moment, their approach is wildly inconsistent. If the courts do not respond to the Government's gentle prodding, I hope that the Home Secretary will consider a fundamental review of the Bail Act 1976 and laying down laws and regulations that require the courts to operate consistently rather than capriciously, as is the case now.
Currently, prisoners awaiting trial or sentence represent over 20 per cent. of the prison population. As a matter of practice, they are applying an intolerable and unnecessary burden on the prison service. The problem of principle is intensified by the fact that, according to the latest figures, 1,000 remand prisoners are now being held in police cells. That is bad in every way. It is bad for the prisoners who are held in intolerable conditions, for the police who are put under additional pressure and for the system of justice because it makes access of lawyers and solicitors sometimes difficult to the point of near impossibility. Again, the problem will be solved only by radical determination to reduce the prison population.
I may be doing the Home Secretary a slight injustice when I say that his faults are those of timidity alone. He is also guilty of hopeless confusion in his attitude towards remand. He claims that we should reduce the period in which men and women are held before trial, but in the Criminal Justice Bill he proposed to change the remand

rules so that the initial application can cover 28 rather than seven days. I know that has the marginal benefit of reducing the time taken by prison officers and police in travelling between court and prison, but the penalties are enormous. One of them is the increase in the number of remand prisoners held at any one time. I hope that the Home Secretary will not underestimate the significance of that increase. We know that the increase in remand prisoners has increased the prison population over the past year by 700. The Home Secretary admitted that on 30 March when, for the second time in a year, he came to the House to announce emergency action. That is exactly the number of new places he has found it necessary to create in the Army camps at Rollestone and Camberley. Had he not allowed the number of remand prisoners to increase, those Army camps would not have been needed.
I repeat that I do not suggest that the Government's recent shortcomings are the main cause of the prison population explosion. The real causes are more longstanding. They are based on enthusiasm for sending men and women to gaol. That enthusiasm varies from area to area and results in some magistrates sending 9 per cent. of convicted offenders to prison while in other areas the figure is as high as 35 per cent. Section 1(4) of the Criminal Justice Act 1982 provided the first steps towards laying down criteria by which the courts could judge the suitability of custody for offenders under 21. We believe that the time has come for similar criteria to be laid down for all offenders, as a matter not only of civil liberties but of practical necessity. The answer lies in radical measures.
The remedy lies also in the introduction of an early release scheme for minor offenders, in the creation of a climate in which prison is used as a last resort and sentences are of a sensible length and in the removal from the prison system altogether of some of the thousands of people who should never have been there in the first place—obvious examples being fine defaulters and debtors. Fine defaulters constitute only 1·5 per cent. of the average daily prison population but they account for one fifth of all offenders entering prison. They therefore impose a huge and disproportionate burden on the prison system.
It is still not clear whether the Government support or reject the idea of day fines related directly to offenders' ability to pay rather than some notional tariff that the courts carry in their collective heads. Perhaps the Under-Secretary will tell us the Government's conclusion on that subject. We certainly support that idea and I hope that the Government will share our enthusiasm for it.
The Government have not been sufficiently imaginative in considering ways in which maintenance payments can be collected rather than written off by the acceptance of a prison sentence. There can be nothing more desperate in our society than the circumstances of the family that does not receive the maintenance that pays its grocery bills because a man believes that he has discharged his duty by serving a prison sentence.
There is another category of prisoner that clogs up the system without providing any benefit either to society or to the individual on whom the sentence has been imposed. There are in our prisons today a large number of men and women who are simply social inadequates—drunkards, vagrants and small fine defaulters who have been convicted of offences related to their inadequacies. They are constantly returned to prison for short sentences, and they impose an enormous cost and burden on the system. In other countries, they are dealt with quite differently.
The non-custodial institutions in which they spend their time are far less expensive than full-blown prisons. It is in the creation of such institutions that the Home Secretary should see the solution for some of the overcrowding that he has described.
The problem will not be solved by the prison building programme alone or by the occasional opening of Army camps or agreement to emergency accelerated release. It will certainly not be solved by the introduction of unacceptable and unworkable gimmicks, such as electronic tagging, about which I note the Home Secretary had nothing whatever to say today. I hope that we can assume that as the electronic tagging idea served no more serious a purpose than to get the name of the Minister of State into the newspapers from time to time, we can abandon all discussion on it and write it off. The Home Secretary shakes his head. Does he intend to go forward with such a scheme or does he not?

Mr. Hurd: The right hon. Gentleman must contain his curiosity until he sees our Green Paper on punishment in the community. As I have often said, we are considering whether some scheme of electronic tagging would fit into British conditions and help to provide the alternatives to custody of which I spoke at some length.

Mr. Hattersley: Part of my admiration for the Home Secretary is that he describes electronic tagging with such obvious patrician disdain. If he took it as seriously as the Minister of State, he would no doubt have dealt with it in some detail today. But it seems to be the only subject on which the Minister of State ever makes a speech. Recourse to and refuge in such gimmicks will not solve the problems; nor will the building programme, welcome though it is. The real solution lies in sending fewer people to prison, in excluding from prison those for whom a custodial sentence is inappropriate and in ensuring that when such a sentence is necessary it is no longer than meets the bill and fits the crime. We shall continue to advocate that course and we shall continue to hope that the Home Secretary has the nerve eventually to adopt such an approach.

Mr. Michael Alison: The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) properly and understandably ranged across the whole spectrum of prison affairs. I propose to draw attention to an aspect of prison life which may at first sight seem marginal, but which, in my view, is highly significant. I refer to the role of prison chaplains and the place of religion and worship in prisons. I do so not wearing an official Church of England hat but merely as a trustee of a charity—Prison Fellowship—which is actively concerned with these matters.
The Home Secretary will know that there are 87 full-time and 40 part-time Anglican prison chaplains in post at present. There are a dozen full-time Roman Catholic chaplains and a number of part-time nonconformist chaplains.
Anyone with any experience of institutional life—whether at school or university, in the forces or in hospital work—will know two things. First, a chaplain is usually provided, but usually in rather a formal and automatic

way. Rather like a medical officer, he is someone who one needs to have about the place but to whom one hopes and believes people will not need to have recourse. Secondly, when the right man is in post as chaplain, the effect for good can be the most fundamental and pervasive of all factors affecting the morale of the institution. That is certainly true in prisons, and it goes further than that. Most prisoners have not darkened the doors of a parish church or chapel since the earliest days when they had a brush with the baptismal font in their local place of worship. Once they are in prison, probably only two factors or influences can give them a fresh start, and it is a fresh start for prisoners with which we must be concerned above all.
Education is an enormously important and valuable influence. The experience of a poorly educated prisoner who progresses to become a candidate or graduate of the Open university is profoundly rehabilitative. The other influence is the experience of an inner change of heart in which the inmate comes to terms with his guilt, his sense of personal value is restored and he finally achieves a sense of social acceptance, whereas his relationship with society has been profoundly disrupted. This latter rehabilitative influence can come only through the work of religion, the prison chaplaincy service and, above all, through contact with the churches in the vicinity of the prison where the prisoner is held.
In pursuit of positive rehabilitative prison objectives, it behoves the prison service and the Government to give as much help, support and encouragement as possible to the prison chaplain and his role. At present, that support is not always forthcoming in practical terms. For example, chaplaincy meetings and programmes tend to be early victims of any constraints imposed by staff shortages on the daily or weekly routine of prisons. Chaplaincy meetings are often forced to start late and finish early and they are often cancelled. Midweek programmes, particularly, seem to be extremely vulnerable to cancellation and disruption. Sometimes blocks A and B of a prison are given access to a chaplaincy meeting while blocks C and D are disbarred from it for some reason.
The most notorious example of unhelpful attitudes to the work of the prison chaplaincy is the history of the famous Dartmoor evening service, which has taken place from time immemorial. It involved the local Salvation Army band coming into the prison. It was a marvellous evening service, supported by local churches and chapels. The Dartmoor evening service has been stopped and there appears to be no prospect of its being allowed to resume, simply because of the undervaluation of the significance and role that such services may have. I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, if he can do nothing else for the chaplaincy service, can guarantee that the Dartmoor evening service, which is of tremendous local fame, is reinstated. If he offers us that, he will earn the support and affection in particular of my hon. Friend the Member for Torridge and Devon, West (Miss Nicholson), who takes an enormous interest in Dartmoor prison.
Another matter of concern, especially when set against the background of the statutory right of prisoners to worship—it is written into the prison rules—is the difficulty faced by a number of special category prisoners in getting access to places of worship. Secure unit inmates, rule 43 inmates—prisoners who are segregated because they have committed sexual offences—and prisoners subject to punishment are often prevented from enjoying


their statutory right to take part in acts of worship. If there is only a part-time chaplain, it is difficult to work services for such prisoners into the overcrowded chaplaincy programme. Hardship is involved, especially for Roman Catholic prisoners who have a strong sacramental dimension to their religious faith and to whom holy communion is vital. It is especially difficult for part-time Roman Catholic chaplains to go round to all prisoners if those prisoners are not allowed to come to meetings.
I am told that part of the explanation for the difficulty in moving such prisoners is the "Gartree helicopter" factor—the deep sensitivity of the prison service about security. Surely the remedy is a greater willingness to trust prison chaplains and to dispense with prison officer supervision at every sort of chaplaincy function or meeting. It should be possible to do that, with a little confidence from the prison governor. In the old days, the prison governor was the first key holder, but the prison chaplain was the second. Those days have gone, but more trust and confidence should be placed in prison chaplains conducting their meetings without the necessity for supervision.
Another matter of concern is the tendency in many prisons to undermine the regular slot—which should be enjoyed, because it is a statutory right—for Sunday morning worship, by providing for other activities at that time, for example, family visits and sporting events. Quite apart from the statutory basis of Sunday worship, and the merit in protecting it from competing events, it is profoundly unfair on prisoners to deny them this right. They spend much of their time in their cells by themselves without moving around the prison. Prisoners must make an agonising choice between competing events to which they would like to go, and then have to return from one to an extended time in the cell, having missed the others. I hope that the regular service of worship is protected and that this slot is made unique for the prisoner who wants to attend worship.
In the current revision of prison standing orders, which are of great significance and could have enormous implications for the prison chaplaincy service, I hope that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will ensure that some of the difficulties faced by chaplains are included in any scrutiny of how prison rules should apply and that some of the anxieties to which I have referred are attended to.
I conclude where I began: the chaplain can be a unique asset in the prison. Internally, a good prison chaplain is detached, yet he can he the confidant of every person in the prison, from the governor to the lowest level of prison officer, from the longest-serving prisoner to the most recently arrived. If the chaplain is trustworthy and good at his job, he is uniquely placed in the prison to develop confidence and to help everyone in all their various difficulties.
Externally, the prison chaplain can lower the drawbridge to the community outside. Few organisations are prepared in a community sense actively to identify themselves with prisoners, apart from the Christian Churches and fellowships. The prison chaplain can draw in such groups, who are only too willing to come into the prison and to mix freely, on equal terms and with complete reconciliation, with the prison population. If the prison chaplain is not allowed to lower that drawbridge, immense deprivation is forced upon the prisoners.
I remember vividly from my days as a junior health Minister that hospital doctors said that the key factor in

progressive patient care, in getting people well in hospital, was to introduce into the hospital as many as possible of the healthy community from outside—healthy friends, associates and members of the family—so that patients felt that they belonged to the healthy community outside, and not to the sick community in the hospital. The same principle applies in prisons, but generally the only parts of the community that will go into prisons voluntarily are the Christian Churches. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary should do everything possible through the chaplaincy service to encourage the mixing of the outside community with prisoners. For those reasons, I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends in the Home Office can give some encouragement and support to the prison chaplaincy service.

Mr. Robert Maclennan: The Home Secretary has held his office for three and a half years and, therefore, it is possible to review his achievements and attitude to the problems in the prisons with objectivity and certainty that might not have been possible even a year ago.
Many people who are concerned about prisons—the Home Secretary said that there were not many in the House, but he underestimates the interest—would have felt when he took office that there had been individual crises in the prison service which had ruffled the otherwise relatively smooth waters of the previous 20 years. In the 1960s, there was the Blake escape and problems of prison security. There was a crisis in the early 1980s, following the industrial action of the prison officers, which was evidence of the staff being under pressure. In the mid-1980s, there was a particularly steep incline in the prison population. We now face not sporadic crises but an endemic problem in the prison service which shows no sign of amelioration and which, if the Home Secretary is unable or unwilling to go further, will deteriorate to a dangerous flashpoint.
In Scotland, where an even higher proportion of the population is incarcerated than in England, the conditions in Peterhead and Perth appear to have led to outbreaks of violence which are the subject of actions in court and which have been commented upon in official and unofficial inquiries. I regret that, because this is such a short debate and no Scottish Minister is participating, it is not possible to review the Scottish scene at length, but the position is alarming. The widespread view in Scotland is that nothing less than a Royal Commission into the penal system will ensure that penal matters are dealt with seriously and that the issues that appear to be being handled by placebos and platitudes by the Scottish Office will be given proper consideration.
The Home Secretary's speech typically showed no radical commitment to dealing with the problem. It is difficult for him, because he operates with colleagues and in a political party whose atavistic, punitive response to crime makes it exceedingly difficult for Conservative Ministers, to take liberal measures when they may be necessary. It was typical of the right hon. Gentleman that he felt it worthwhile to argue about the proportion of convicted offenders confined in comparable European countries. It is of no great significance whether Britain is third, fourth or first, but it is undoubtedly true that a rising proportion of our population is being incarcerated. The figure now stands at about 96 prisoners per 100,000 of the


population. There is little evidence that that rise in incarceration is contributing to the prevention of crime. The figures for recidivism—those who reoffend on release—are deeply depressing, nowhere more so than in respect of young offenders, two thirds of whom are reconvicted within two years of release.

Mr. Andrew Rowe: It is impertinent of me to intervene after having walked in so recently, and I apologise for that, but is the hon. Gentleman aware that there are three experiments using voluntary organisations in which the number of young people being incarcerated and reconvicted has fallen dramatically? Is not that an encouraging sign?

Mr. Maclennan: I find little of encouragement in the figures on young offenders; nor, I think, does the Home Secretary, for he has talked about the problem to the Magistrates Association in south-east London.
There is no evidence that prison makes an effective contribution to the reduction of crime. Most non-violent crime is committed by young offenders, so it is especially important to tackle the problem. The absence of any academic evidence supporting the efficacy of imprisonment might at least lead a cost-conscious Government to consider the efficacy of alternatives. It must be admitted that there is not much foolproof evidence either way, but at least the alternatives to prison are very much more inexpensive and almost certainly no less effective.
The difficulty appears to be that the Home Secretary has approached all the alternatives tentatively and hesitantly and by a process of extensive trial, without the wholehearted commitment necessary to tackle the problem. The rate of increase of prison places to which he referred when speaking about his building programme will not take care of the increased number of prisoners if the alternatives are not tried.
The Home Secretary frequently pays lip service to the need to satisfy public opinion about the appropriateness of the sentencing policy, but too often it is not recognised that public opinion is less atavistic and punitive than is sometimes claimed in Conservative party conferences. Such evidence as there is about public opinion—polling evidence, and evidence from the 1984 crime survey, from the Prison Reform Trust study of 1982, and even from the Mail on Sunday in 1985—shows that if there is a choice between spending more money on building prisons or reducing the prison population by giving non-prison sentences for minor crimes, the public prefers by a clear majority the non-custodial approach. If the Home Secretary wants to influence public opinion so that people understand the problems that he faces, he will do well to commission further research on the effectiveness of alternative forms of penal treatment. Lord Butler, a distinguished predecessor of the right hon. Gentleman, clearly envisaged, when setting up the research unit in the Home Office in 1957, that this sort of information would be made available. Regrettably, the resources have not been sufficient to do that.
The Home Secretary has taken an important step in Fresh Start towards improving the rehabilitative and reforming impact of prisons. In introducing the programme, which everyone supports, he has, however, compounded staff shortages and resource problems. In

some cases accommodation cannot be used because of such shortages. One example is the Castington youth custody centre in Northumbria, where 60 cells equipped with sanitation are empty because there is no one to staff them. In Acklington, 213 cells were vacated when the new wings were brought into use, and there is no sign of whether they will be brought back into use to deal with the present crisis. The problems are replicated around the country.
The Home Secretary referred to his experiment with alternative means of handling the problems of court escort duty, which has deprived the prison service of the possibility of developing education and work alternatives in a number of prisons. Once again, no firm action is being taken and we are promised nothing that can tackle the problem.
There can be no doubt, in the light of the Wandsworth prison visitors' report and the annual inspectors' reports, that the present internal prison regimes—in particular, the overcrowded local prisons and police cells holding prisoners on remand—are degrading for prisoners, demoralising for the staff and wholly unacceptable in a civilised society.
The Home Secretary talked about what he could do to alter the climate on sentencing. He can and must do a great deal more by way of exhortation. Exhortation, even by the Court of Appeal, appears to be inadequate. The Bibi case—the leading case—in 1980 advised sentencers to consider whether sentences half the length of that which came to their minds would be appropriate. Such exhortations seem to have no effect, whether they come from the Court of Appeal, the Lord Chief Justice or the Home Secretary. That in itself must give rise to the question whether Parliament should intervene.
I wholly accept the Home Secretary's view that it is inappropriate for him to intervene in particular cases, although it is not unknown for Home Secretaries to intervene in categories of cases where a pattern of sentences appears to create injustices. As long ago as April 1888, Sir William Harcourt, reflecting on his experience as a Liberal Home Secretary, said that he had considered the need to ensure that young people of eight and under were not detained in prison cells, not because there were no prison cells in which to detain them but because it was a great injustice to detain such young people. The time may have come for the Home Secretary equally to seek alternatives.
The Home Secretary recognised the value of bail hostels, but, again, their location is hopelessly inadequate and there are insufficient of them to provide alternatives for sentencers. The bail verification scheme, which also enjoys the Home Secretary's nominal support, is on a wholly inadequate scale. He said nothing about the desirability of legal representation at remand hearings as of right, which might result in fewer people being held.
Of the non-custodial options available to the court, community service orders and package-deal probation orders are obviously of great interest to the courts and they use them wherever they can. However, the non-availability of non-penal hostel accommodation, day centres and centres for the treatment of alcohol and drug addiction is particularly scandalous. One young offender in my constituency has been repeatedly committed to Inverness prison as a persistent glue sniffer because there is no other secure place in which he can be held, and he cannot be


given treatment at Inverness. Britain's expenditure on prisons is massive, but our expenditure on alternatives to prison is wholly inadequate.
The sentencing discretion must not be directly interfered with, but sentencers are not always sufficiently informed about the practical consequences of the alternatives in their localities. The Government would do well to consider—I hope that the Carlisle committee is doing so—the possibility of continuity of contact between those who are sentencing and those who are administering the penal system. That is not the practice in Britain. On visiting prisons around the country, it is remarkable to learn how few sentencers visit prisons.
In France the juge de l'application des peines is appointed by order for three years and the appointment is renewable. He supervises the serving of sentences, custodial conditions, permission to work outside prison, the granting of semi-freedom and release on licence. That practice has worked well in France, and comparable prison practices operate in Austria and several other countries. It is clearly not right to involve members of the judiciary in administration, but it is right that they should know the consequences of their sentences.
I also commend to the Government the introduction of a sentencing guidelines commission on the Minnesota model. Although provoked by a problem of overcrowding comparable to Britain's, but on a smaller scale, it was introduced in a way that has brought about some similarity in sentencing policy in courts throughout that state.
The Government could also look at the recommendations of Justice, made as long ago as 1980 in an important report called "Breaking the Rules", on the decriminalising of unlawful action. More than half of criminal offences involve strict liability with no regard to the state of mind of the offender. That series of recommendations is meritorious and overdue for consideration.
There remains a serious mystery about the Government's attitude to day-fines. I hope that the Under-Secretary of State will clear it up. In January the Home Secretary said that the Government were not yet ready to relate fines to the ability of the offender to pay. Why not? The failure to tackle the problem of fine defaulters has distorted the prison population and could be tackled if the Government moved in that sphere. I cannot think why the Government are so reluctant to move on day fines. They should also remove the option of imprisonment for certain petty offences and perhaps ask the criminal law revision committee to review that prospect as a matter of urgency.
Under article 3 of the European convention on human rights, prisoners are entitled to be protected from degrading treatment and punishment, but the conditions in British prisons today are such that we may conceivably be regularly in breach of that right. The Government do not even appear to be planning to arrive at agreed codified standards and, in their abandonment of the recommendation that prison standards be codified, they have taken a step back.
Prisoners' grievances can and should be tackled in two ways. First, in matters of discretion, a prison ombudsman is appropriate. In matters of rules which convey rights, prisoners should enjoy legal assistance in the preparation of their case. They should also have more ready access to a legal remedy than at present.
The incoherence and vapidity of the criminal justice policy being pursued by the Government is one of the most serious social blots on our current society. I believe that the Home Secretary recognises that. What he plainly does not recognise, and what it is the duty of the House to bring home, is that it is within his power to take action urgently to reduce the prison population. That is the only solution to the problems that we face.

Mr. Charles Irving: First, let me pay a tribute to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and his ministerial colleagues. We tend to think that all the problems, disasters and miseries associated with the disgraceful dustbins of prisons in this country have been created in the last few years. But the position has been deteriorating for 30 or 40 years—perhaps even longer. We now treat inmates in all such establishments far worse than did the Victorians, who built their prisons to accommodate one person per cell.
I do not want to go too much into the miseries, the degradation and all that goes with such conditions. My prime interest is not in the taxpayer spending hundreds of millions of pounds on the development of new prisons without the removal of old ones. I want to see an enthusiastic, encouraging and much larger programme for organisations with which I have had the privilege of working ever since they were started—the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders, Stonham housing association, the National Association of Probation Officers, and others throughout the country. Those organisations are constantly using their best endeavours to take people out of the prison system. But, sadly, they have been starved of funds. At present, 1,200 people are lodged in police cells or cells in magistrates courts, at a cost of well over £1,000 a week per person. That is more than it costs to stay at the Ritz or Claridges. I am not suggesting that we take over the Ritz—although it would be less expensive, and the rooms are a much better size, with their own loos, bathrooms and telly.
Yet we allow the present position to continue. We have to tell Stonham housing association and NACRO that they must live through a long-winded, badly thought out, miserably excused and disguised moratorium while we examine our position. Early this year the moratorium imposed by the Home Office was lifted, and we were told that this would be of great help to the problem of overcrowding. There would be 450 extra beds, spread over three years. I do not think that that is very good, taken in the context of over 1,200 people being held in police and magistrates' courts cells.
Owing to the length of some of the speeches, we shall miss the opportunity of hearing some hon. Members on both sides of the House. That is a pity, in a short debate, but both sides show little sign of enthusiasm or interest in this important issue.
Last year, because of the frustrations and pent-up emotions in the prisons, over £14 million was spent on putting right damage caused by riots and disruptions. That can be easily understood. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and his colleagues will be urged by the House to pay far more attention not necessarily to building prisons without getting rid of the old ones, but to establishing units outside. For instance, a place in a probation hostel costs about £155 a week. A


place in a Stonham hostel costs about £90 a week, and a probation order costs very much less. Surely it makes sense to develop and use the alternatives that are already available. There is no suggestion that we have no alternatives.
I agree with much that has been said about the need to change some of the methods of taking care of offenders. Look at what we do to offenders in this place! If anyone offends here, he is duly judged, and we give him 10 days' holiday with full pay and all allowances. There are different approaches, but I think that the humanitarian approach, the sensible approach, the economical approach is through the voluntary housing system, which has all the apparatus ready.
When I see people such as fine defaulters—19,000 of them—remanded in custody and then released, it appals me. I was involved in 1947 with the original Discharged Prisoner Aid Society, and since then I have been involved with NACRO and Stonham. We cannot seem to see the wood for the trees. I do not know where the blockage is. However, I feel certain that unless my right hon. Friend and his colleagues, along with other hon. Members, take some positive action to relieve the immense pressure on the prison system, we shall pay dearly for it.
I accept what my right hon. Friend says about magistrates and judges. After all, I frequently accept what is said by my hon. Friends on the Conservative Benches. We should not interfere with the judiciary, but there are ways of dealing with these matters. I suppose that the ultimate sanction that the Lord Chancellor has is early retirement for a few of them. That may be a good thing. Indeed, it might be a good idea to have a retiring age in the House.

Mr. Douglas Hogg: No.

Mr. Irving: My hon. Friend has a long way to go, so he need not worry.
Nothing is too trivial to examine. We are in the most perilous national crisis for a very long time. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has been in office for three and a half years. It is probably the worst job in the Government—most former Home Secretaries tell me so. I have been associated with the Refreshment Department for nine years, which is almost as bad. There is no release there.
The debate has produced a mass of statistics on how much we will spend over the next 10 years putting more and more people into prison. But we should be concentrating on a remedy that is within the bounds of public safety and public order. Few of us here are stupid enough not to realise that there are people who deserve and will have to go to prison and be kept there for a long time. Nevertheless, statistics reveal that an appalling number of people are remanded and ultimately released, either innocent or with no prison sentence.
I hope that the Home Office, the Home Secretary and everyone else will help to meet and resolve the major dilemma that is facing the community and the prisons. Such co-operation is necessary if we are to avert a national disaster in our prisons. I pay tribute to the prison officers, because the conditions in which they work are almost intolerable. Certainly there have been improvements, but when one is working in a pent-up, tense atmosphere,

humanities go out of the window. Problems will come straight in through the window if the House, the Government and all concerned do not take some early action to resolve the difficulties.

Mr. Gerald Bermingham: It is always a pleasure to listen to the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Irving), who speaks so much sense. One contrasts the brevity of his remarks with the unmitigated diatribe that we heard from the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan), who clearly did not understand the subject. Sometimes such things need to be said. I intend to be as brief as the hon. Member for Cheltenham, who put his finger on it when he said that the question to be asked is, not how to house the prisoners we have, but whom we should imprison. I declare an interest in that respect.
Over the years we have seen the growth of what is called tariff sentences—for a certain type of crime the sentence will be a certain type. Unfortunately, we have begun to sentence the offence rather than the offender. That is an appalling mistake. Such a mistake happens frequently in the Crown courts. Colleagues of mine have told me how they have heard Crown court judges say, "Of course, the tariff for this is X number of years." There is no question whether, in the particular circumstances of a particular defendent, there is an alternative way of dealing with him.
If we continue such sentencing practice, more and more people will be sent to prison because more and more people are committing crimes. Nobody has ever bothered to find out why. I understand from The Independent of a few days ago that the Minister has put together a team of 11 Ministers to inquire into that. What do 11 politicians know about it? Criminologists, psychologists, sociologists and various other persons have spent their lives studying that subject. Apparently no one bothers to ask them but rather asks Ministers. Perhaps it is amusing to note that on page two of that newspaper are reported the views of the British Medical Association about the order or priority for saving people after a nuclear war. I noticed that politicians came at the bottom of the list. It is possible that, in respect of prisons, the BMA has got it right. If we are to think about crime and punishment and how to solve our appalling prison crisis, we must ask the experts. We must ask what makes people commit a crime and how to deal with them when they do.
There has not been a Royal Commission on this subject since 1979—the year in which the Prime Minister came to office, which sheds some interesting light on the matter—and I accept that such commissions take time. The subject is important enough, however, to let the experts have their say. We should see if we can begin to undo the damage that has been done.
I accept that that damage has not occurred only in the past 10 years. When the Labour party was in government it made exactly the same mistakes as the present Government did in their early years of office. I do not blame either party, and I do not want to be political in this respect. We have all failed to anticipate the crisis and to put resources into the system early enough. For once let us accept the responsibility. Let us be big enough to say "Stop, we have got it wrong." Let us see if we can get it right.
I congratulate the Home Secretary on the prison building programme. The tragedy is that unless we change the sentencing policy we shall never catch up on the number of prisoners who are made available to the system. That is not the fault of the Government, the Home Office, the prison department or the courts because the sentencing pattern was established some 150 years ago when we gave up transportation. That is when the mistakes began. We began with the principle that imprisonment was the only alternative.
1 remember being in a juvenile court when a 15-year-old boy appeared on his first charge of burglary. He was the lookout who was drafted in at the last moment. The stipendiary magistrate sat there in all his severity with his two lay colleagues. Before the magistrate had heard the mitigation or any explanation from the defence, he said, "Well, I think we will have reports on this. Obviously I am considering custody." That was the primary consideration on that first offence. That was lunacy. It is the sort of lunacy that has developed from a policy that gradually evolved as people said, "The crime rate is going up: what can we do about it?" We should have asked how we could deal with the offender in a way that would not make him reoffend. Instead of that it was considered best to lock them up and take them out of society. We have had the short, sharp, shock treatment which was then abandoned and the old borstals which were later abandoned.
Rather than examining the offender and the reasons for the offence, we have always said, "Let us see if we can deter." We have been naive and we have not approached the problem with an open mind. We, the lawyers, are as guilty as anyone and we, the politicians, are equally guilty.
The time has come for us to stand back and accept that we have failed all the way. We must accept the mess that we are now in. Let us see whether we are big enough to say that we shall simply ask the experts. We should see what they have to say and seek to solve the problem on that advice. Such advice will not come from politicians. We are imbued in our philosophical approaches and we have our prejudices. We are subject to the pressures of the postbag and often to the pressures of the press. We tend to give in and scream when we think that sentences are too short. We are not always objective. The criminologist, the sociologist, the psychiatrist—the expert—is objective.
I urge the Under-Secretary to consider a simple request. Let us see if we can break the record of the past nine years—I am not being political in this respect—and appoint a Royal Commission to ask two questions. First, who do we want to send to prison? Secondly, what is the purpose of imprisonment? If we find the answers to those questions, we shall certainly incarcerate the villainous and the evil who must go to prison, but we shall do it in a way that may rehabilitate them. We may just resolve the problem of reoffending.
It is interesting to consider the words of the prison officer at Chelmsford whom I met a few months ago. He said, "Gerry, I watch them come in for the first time like little lambs and I watch them go out after three months as professional villains." It is time we began to think seriously.

Mrs. Virginia Bottomley: I wholeheartedly endorse the welcome given to my right hon. Friend's speech. It is extremely important to have a

Home Secretary who does not regard the prison population as out of sight and out of mind. My right hon. Friend's openness in making the board of visitors' reports available, his frankness when discussing the problem and his proposals for the future are welcome to many of us.
I shall not dwell on the facts and figures—the 22 per cent. increase in staffing with the lower increase in the number of prisoners, the enormous plans for prison building and for further places. All of us are searching eagerly for ways of meeting the rising prison population.
When Fresh Start was introduced I expressed the hope in an Adjournment debate that the Prison Officers Association would work constructively with those proposals. I am still concerned that too many prison governors, who have responsible and onerous jobs, spend far too much of their time worrying about the shenanigans of the Prison Officers Association instead of worrying about the welfare and the needs of their more difficult prisoners. Too many members of the Prison Officers Association believe that a ballot at their local branch is as important as organising the prison. They refuse to work with women officers and lock out prisoners and refuse to accept more prisoners. Something like one third of those in police cells are there because of the obstructive and negative behaviour of some leaders of the Prison Officers Association.
I have been associated with this problem for many years. Unlike many hon. Members, I speak free from fear or favour, as there is no prison in my constituency. It is high time that the Prison Officers Association realised that it has to co-operate, and that the governors, not the unions, should manage the prisons.
Many people hope that my right hon. Friend will either move towards legislation to prevent the POA from taking strike action, in the same way as with the police and the Army, or to go further, in his privatisation or other proposals, to reduce the union's powers. The problem has been concealed for far too long and my right hon. Friend should realise that many people feel profoundly arid strongly about it.
I recognise that the Fresh Start proposals have begun in many prisons, but difficulties still exist. Despite increased recruitment, the pressure of staff shortages clearly makes changes in working practices difficult, and I ask my right hon. Friend to continue to look favourably on the need for more staffing.
Many hon. Members have spoken about the desirability of non-custodial sentences. The majority of prisoners have not committed violent offences; many go to prison for failing to pay fines. Clearly it is essential that my right hon. Friend tries to extend to the adult sector many of the policies introduced in the juvenile sector.
There is much to be said for extending to adult sentences the criteria set in the Criminal Justice Act 1982 for custodial sentences for young offenders. I ask my right hon. Friend to do more and to draw the attention of justices' clerks and judges to the disparity in sentencing practices. He spoke effectively about the distinction between the independence of members of the judiciary and their isolation. There is much more to be done in highlighting, particularly to judges, the vast discrepancy in sentencing practice.
I must say again that I hope that my right hon. Friend will find a way to remove 14-year-olds from penal custody. It makes no sense for 500 youngsters to go into detention centres each year. They are not serious offenders. if they


were, they would be covered by section 53 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933. The vast majority of them reoffend within two years. The child goes from following a delinquent career to becoming a career delinquent. Once young people have been inside a detention centre, they feel that that is where they belong and that they are hard men. Their chances of ending up in prison are increased.
Alternatives to custody were introduced in the juvenile sector by the development of local projects and local initiatives, often using the voluntary sector. It is interesting that those who object to the concept of privatisation fail to realise that the voluntary sector, while not providing services for profit, forms an alternative to the state providing all services. The other key lesson from the juvenile sector was that the local providers of the service—the police and the probation service—worked very well together to inspire the confidence of the courts, so that when sentencing a young person courts would not consider alternatives to custody a soft option.
My right hon. Friend's initiative in discussing punishment in the community provides real hope for the way forward. It is sometimes thought that the probation service is caring, helpful and advising and the prison service is custodial and punitive. That is an artificial distinction. It is high time that the probation service and the prison service realised that, although they are at different ends of a spectrum, they must both combine the skills of caring and controlling. That is why the immediate reaction to electronic tagging—which I was disappointed to hear from the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley)—is ridiculous. If we can find a way of identifying where offenders are and thereby deterring crime, we should use it.
The right hon. Gentleman talked about the cause of crime. I cannot give him a definitive statement about the cause of crime, but I spent 10 years as a psychiatric social worker and 10 years as chairman of a juvenile court and I used to write papers on the subject. The vast majority of crime starts impulsively. It is circumstantial and involves youngsters who have few skills or advantages.
If electronic tagging can make a potential criminal, a remand prisoner or someone on a community probation service order feel supervised and watched over and, therefore, he does not commit a crime, surely it is the height of irresponsibility to rule it out of order. A remand prisoner at Chelmsford prison wrote in a recent letter to a newspaper:
When people talk about civil rights being infringed by the use of electronic tagging, what do they think about my civil rights in gaol whilst I await trial?
The great delays in awaiting trial and the damage caused to family life are part of the same problem.
Broadly, I endorse the strategy that my right hon. Friend is pursuing. We have to maintain the confidence of the public and we have to ensure the co-operation of the judiciary. It has been said clearly and well that sending people to universities of crime is a costly alternative. It may be necessary for those who need to be kept out of circulation, but we must do all that we can to ensure that our prison system is effectively and efficiently managed, and to deter people from going to prison in the first place.

Mrs. Ann Taylor: My right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) and others who have spoken in the debate have illustrated clearly some of the basic facts about the present crisis in our prisons. Nationally, we have 50,500 prisoners in a system designed, sometimes by Victorian standards, for a prison population of about 42,000. Bedford prison has a capacity for 176 prisoners and holds 346 prisoners. Leeds prison has a capacity of 642 and holds 1,381 prisoners. Leicester prison, which my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, South (Mr. Marshall) was hoping to mention but he had to leave the debate, has a capacity of 200 prisoners but contains 435 prisoners. It is clear that there is massive overcrowding and pressure in our prisons.
Many prisoners are being held in remand in police cells which are supposed to hold people for a few hours but are now holding more than 1,000 prisoners on remand, often in subterranean cells with inadequate light and ventilation, not for only a few days, but in too many cases for weeks or even for months. Whichever way we look at our custodial arrangements, for those who are convicted and for those who are not convicted there is a crisis. If a crisis of such magnitude existed in an area other than prisons, there would be a public outcry. As we all know, prisoners' rights are very low on the political agenda—in my view unwisely, because our treatment of prisoners is counterproductive to the long-term interests of society.
In his reasonable and responsible speech, the Home Secretary paid tribute to the work of the prison officers. I was somewhat surprised and disappointed by the comments of the hon. Member for Surrey, South-West (Mrs. Bottomley). We expected her to show more understanding of the pressure under which prison officers have to work.
I remind the House of what massive overcrowding means for those who are working in the prison service. Some prisons contain double the number of prisoners for which they were built. Two or three prisoners are being held in a cell that was designed for one person. Prison officer numbers are often below establishment. About one third to one half of all prisoners are locked in their cells for 23 out of 24 hours each day. Education facilities have been cut back and the association of prisoners with each other is limited. The Home Secretary acknowledged the importance of prisoner association in preventing incidents, such as suicide. Exercise, sport and access to workshops are all restricted, to say nothing about sanitation.
In those conditions, prison officers can attempt to do only one aspect of their job—containment. They can do nothing about educating, training or guiding prisoners in an attempt at rehabilitation. The result is that they are trapped in a vicious circle, which leads to prisoners being more difficult to contain. I hope that Conservative Members will join the Home Secretary in dropping their criticism and blame of prison officers and that they will work with prison officers to make Fresh Start a reality. The Home Secretary promised prison officers that by 28 February there would be full manning levels to enable Fresh Start to begin. That promise has not been fulfilled, so it is not surprising that prison officers feel that it is difficult for them to work under their present conditions—that it it difficult to tolerate the intolerable.
Those who are involved with prisons and penal policies—prison officers and civilian staff in prisons—agree that


there is a crisis. The report of Her Majesty's inspector of prisons illustrates clearly that crisis. Boards of visitors in gaols from Leicester to Wandsworth have expressed exasperation about their pleas for action having been ignored, thus proving the case for the introduction of minimum standards. The probation service, which has not been discussed in great detail in this debate, believes that the mental and physical deterioration of prisoners who are on remand is extremely severe and that prisoners are not always adequately represented in court because they have been "lost" in the system.
We have been considering what should be done. I want to consider two aspects: first, how the present prison population can be reduced, a point with which the Home Secretary did not deal, and, secondly, how further increases in the prison population can be prevented. Every time the Home Secretary has introduced panic measures to reduce the prison population—for example, by increasing remission in July 1987, which we supported—there has been a quick resumption of the relentless climb in prison numbers, which proves that short-term measures are not the answer.
The Home Secretary could introduce several measures to reduce the prison population that would have a direct impact. First, he could introduce a supervisory scheme. My right hon. Friend the Member for Sparkbrook referred to the significant contribution that that could make. I hope that the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department will be able to say with which of his predecessors the Home Secretary agrees and whether any movement can be expected in the near future.
Secondly, the Home Secretary should do more about the delays that people experience before they appear in court. There should be a national system of time limits, not just the slowly-slowly approach that the Government have adopted so far. The Home Secretary has never explained why there cannot be a national system.
Thirdly, Ministers should think again about clause 139 of the Criminal Justice Bill. The clause will increase the number of people held on remand as it allows remand periods of up to 28 days. Fourthly, the Government should reverse the decision of the Nottingham justices so that those who are charged and held on remand are provided with sufficient opportunity to make their case for being released on bail.
All these measures would reduce, to varying degrees, the immediate pressure on our prisons. None of them would increase the risk to society, a point that we must all bear in mind.
In the longer term, there must be a change in sentencing policy. We send a higher proportion of offenders to prison than most of our European neighbours and we have a high level of recidivism. Six out of 10 prisoners are back in prison within a relatively short time, which does not exactly prove the success of that approach. We need to look at the principles of sentencing.
It is clearly common ground that those who are convicted of serious and violent crimes, including anybody who might be a danger to society, should receive custodial sentences, but for those who are convicted of less serious offences the courts should first consider non-custodial sentences. The Government could have helped to ensure that by accepting our amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill, which would have required courts to state why a non-custodial sentence was inappropriate. That would

have been one way to deal with the disparity of sentencing policy in our courts, to which the hon. Member for Surrey, South-West referred.
Those who appear before the courts in one part of the country rather than another are far more likely to receive custodial sentences. There is a marked difference in sentencing policy. In Rotherham, only 8 per cent. of adult males who appear before the courts are given custodial sentences, whereas at Tower Bridge 39 per cent. of adult males receive custodial sentences. In Bournemouth, 12 per cent. receive custodial sentences. In Brighton, 25 per cent. receive custodial sentences. The Government must surely agree that greater consistency is needed. I hope that they will look again at our amendment as one way towards achieving that aim.
Today, as on other occasions, the Government have said that they wish there to be greater use of non-custodial sentences, but as yet they have done little to ensure it. The probation service is willing and ready to take on more supervision of offenders in the community. A sufficient number of alternatives, including intensive supervision, already exists. The probation service does not need more powers to extend its work. If the courts would use these as alternatives to prison rather than just as alternatives for those who would not receive a prison sentence anyway, more constructive work could be done by the probation service.
The probation service wants to emphasise the constructive side of its work. It views with dismay parts of the draft national standards for community service orders. The fact that physical work should be stipulated, as suggested in the draft, could cut across the positive approach that is now proving to be successful in so many areas. What is more, the option of expanding the probation service would also save public money. That must surely appeal to the Government.
To keep somebody in prison costs £252 a week. To keep somebody in a probation hostel costs £155 a week. Somebody who is on a probation supervision order costs £15 a week and somebody who is on a community service order costs only £13 a week—a very striking difference. If we were discussing prisoners who are a threat to the public, cost would not come into it, but we are talking about the vast majority of prisoners—petty criminals, for whom there should be an alternative to prison, an alternative that would provide benefits for the prisoner and for society.
The probation service has shown that, for £2·5 million, 3,000 additional people could be kept out of prison. That seems to me a wise investment, especially in view of the amount that is to be spent on prison building. It would achieve a great deal in a short time.
It is not in the public interest for Ministers to get so carried away by their rhetoric about being tough with criminals that they lose sight of the main problem. I repeat the point of agreement. We all believe that custody is right for dangerous and violent criminals, but if we are to stop others falling into a cycle of crime we need a different emphasis. Our sentencing policy pushes someone with a conviction into a crime trap, where prison increases the likelihood of his reoffending and drives a rift between the prisoner and his home, family and community, all of which might have helped to prevent his reoffending.
All of those who work in the penal system—the prison officers, probation officers, educationists and medical staff—rightly demand a system that they can operate successfully, and society rightly demands a system that will


protect them effectively. It is our duty to ensure, and I hope that with co-operation on both sides we shall ensure, that we provide such a system.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Douglas Hogg): This has been an important debate, and it has certainly been a rare one. The House is grateful to Mr. Speaker for giving us this opportunity to debate prisons. It has enabled us at least to bring together in a coherent whole the various policies that we are pursuing in our conduct of the prison service and of criminal justice.
My only regret is that the debate has been so short. Several hon. Members who wished to participate and had much to say have necessarily been excluded, most notably perhaps my hon. Friends the Members for Warrington, South (Mr. Butler), for Torridge and Devon, West (Miss Nicholson) and for Norfolk, South-West (Mrs. Shephard). Their absence and inability to contribute is a loss to our debate. It is a pity, too, that the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) was unable to speak.

Mr. Michael Marshall: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for allowing me to intervene. I appreciate his generosity in referring to those hon. Members who have been unable to contribute to the debate.
My hon. Friend will know of my concern about Ford open prison. I hope that he will say something about open prisons. He will know the problem of categorising prisoners, with violent prisoners coming through the system and upsetting the delicate balance of the local community, the problem of lack of records, about which I know he is concerned, and, above all, the shortage of staff, and of his Department's not responding to recommendations of his own inspectorate. If my hon. Friend covers those points he will do a great service to many of us.

Mr. Hogg: My hon. Friend the Member for Arundel (Mr. Marshall) has shown that in a few crisp words one can encapulate a speech that some hon. Members would take 15 minutes to deliver. I have had the opportunity to discuss those points in private and otherwise, and my hon. Friend will know my reactions to what he has said.
At the heart of our problem, as has been focused correctly by many hon. Members, is overcrowding. This has been caused by the steady increase in the number of prisoners who are committed to the prison system by our courts. But we should be under no illusion about this. In committing people to prison in ever-increasing numbers, the courts are broadly reflecting public attitudes and opinion. A penal policy that is not in accord with the grain of public sentiment is difficult to sustain over a long time. It is important to focus on public opinion because, if we are to make changes in this sphere, it is necessary to carry the public with us. We must understand the premise on which we stand.

Mr. Bermingham: Does the Minister agree that 20 years ago when somebody went to prison everyone in the street, school, club and pub knew about it, and it was a public disgrace? It is now becoming so frequent to go to prison that when it is referred to in the school, club or pub people

say, "Johnny has just gone away for a couple of months, ha, ha, ha!" Prison has lost its meaning because it is over used.

Mr. Hogg: I do not think that is right. Prison has not lost its meaning; it serves as a deterrent. As I shall suggest, I do not believe that everybody who is in prison should go to prison, but that is a different point.
One of the major causes of overcrowding in our prison system is the rapid increase in the remand population, which, as my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said, is now about 22 per cent. of the whole prison population. I find it deeply disturbing that so many unconvicted people are held in custody, and I find it even more disturbing when I reflect that the presumptions are precisely contrary to a refusal of bail. These are matters upon which we need to focus.
There are a number of things that we can do about the remand population. First, we can appoint more judges; and we are doing this. Secondly, we can ensure that more bail places are made available; and this we can do. We can ensure that the courts receive more information about defendants, which we are doing as well. We can ensure that the Crown Prosecution Service is more consistent in its approach to bail questions, and we can impose time limits.
The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) and his hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor) asked why we do not introduce time limits at once. Our intention is to have the time limits in place in England and Wales by 1990. We do not think that it is possible to do that country-wide sooner, because the courts and other relevant institutions will not be able to make an effective response to bring in time limits sooner than 1990.

Mrs. Ann Taylor: rose—

Mr. Hogg: I am sorry not to give way to the hon. Lady, but I have only four minutes in which to complete my reply.
We must not forget that we are talking about judicial systems and decisions. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Irving) rightly said, judges are very independent, and jealous of that independence. But, at the same time, we are in the business of asserting and repeating that bail should be refused only if there are grave and compelling reasons for its denial. The presumptions are and must remain in favour of granting bail.
Several hon. Members have stressed that people are in prison who should be elsewhere. Anybody who has dealt with the criminal courts knows that that is true. I do not believe, however, that the solution to that problem can be found in denying to courts an ability to send people to prison for the range of offences that attract custodial sentences. It cannot be right to argue that only those who are guilty of violent offences should serve a prison sentence. The courts must have the power to send to prison persistent burglars or, say, the recidivist thief. I am glad that the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook agrees with me.
At the same time, we need to devise and come forward with a yet wider range of alternative sentences, not involving custody, but of a nature that implies real punishment, entails real control and is accepted as doing that by both courts and public alike.
In the few minutes remaining, I shall deal briefly with prison officers, upon whose compassion, good sense and


discipline the weight of the prison system rests. As my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey, South-West (Mrs. Bottomley) said, we have had our differences with those who represent prison officers. I deeply deprecate their willingness to resort to industrial action, which I find difficult to reconcile with the fine traditions of the ordered and disciplined service that I have come to admire. It is also right to say that the ordinary prison officer is a fine public servant doing a difficult and somewhat unpleasant job in a disciplined and professional manner. We have recognised that fact by the introduction of Fresh Start, which has done away with the necessity of working long hours of overtime and established a higher degree of continuity and job satisfaction in an important public service.
It is inevitable in a short debate that I should omit many points, and I apologise for that. But this is an occasion for some broad points to be made. No person, whether convicted or unconvicted, should be committed to prison unless justice and the public interest require it. At all times, we must remember that prisoners will be discharged back into the community. It is better for us all that the regime that we administer does not degrade more than is inevitable. In degradation lies alienation and the loss of self-respect, and that is dangerous to us all. Therefore, we need to improve the quality of life that is to be found in our prison system.

It being Seven o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

City of London (Spitalfields Market) Bill (By Order)

Order for Second Reading read.

Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd): Before we begin the debate, I inform the House that Mr. Speaker has selected the last instruction on the Order Paper standing in the name of the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore)—
That it be an instruction to the Committee on the Bill to consider and report to the House on the likely effects on other London wholesale fruit and vegetable markets of the proposals to transfer the Spitalfields market to Temple Mills.
I take it that there is no objection to debating the instruction with the Second Reading. I thank the House.

Sir Geoffrey Finsberg (Hampstead and Highgate): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
I start by explaining that the Paymaster General, the right hon. Member for the City of London and Westminster, South (Mr. Brooke), is muted as a Minister and is not permitted to speak on legislation such as this.
For a variety of reasons, I was delighted to take on the task of presenting legislation on behalf of the City. I explain at once that I have no financial interest. I am an old citizen. I went to the City of London school. My father worked at Smithfield market for some 15 years, so I know the high quality of City markets. I am a member of the Guild of Freemen of the City of London. I look forward to the City of London administering Hampstead heath in the not-too-distant future.
As I see it, opposition to the Bill is divided into two, or perhaps two and a half, sides. Some of my hon. Friends have constituency interests or trade interests. I hoped to convince them to support the Bill or to let it go to Committee, where their points could be thrashed out. However, I am delighted to say that agreement has been reached between the Covent Garden market authority, its tenants and the corporation, which means that the authority no longer objects to the Bill. Some Opposition Members have legitimate constituency interests. I hope to persuade them to let the battle of detail occur in Committee, rather than to try to prevent the Bill having a Second Reading.
Those of us who have witnessed City debates over the years know that some members of the London Labour party have a pathological hatred of the corporation of London. Indeed, they tried to abolish it, but they failed, even when there was a Labour Government. If they were objectively to look at the corporation's record, they would see every reason for backing the Bill and not opposing it.
Officials of the corporation wrote to all hon. Members who put down a blocking motion, and invited them to meet them and to hear the facts. That offer was taken up by only two of my hon. Friends. I can only assume that the other signatories did not wish to be confused by facts

Mr. Tony Banks: I hope that the hon. Member will not continue in the vein of his last sentence. The issues are fairly well cut and clear, and we know exactly what our position is. The objectors—certainly those from the London borough of Newham—have been dealing with the market traders who are most affected. They are in consultation with the City of London.


There was close liaison. It was not a matter of our not wanting to meet City representatives; there was just no point in doing so.

Sir Geoffrey Finsberg: Over the years, I have blocked many Bills. As a Member of Parliament, I considered that it was my duty to meet those who were directly promoting the Bill to know what was behind it.
The City has tried to overcome amd meet legitimate fears. If I should suddenly disappear during the debate, it may be to get information from Heaven, as it were, although I am glad that one of my hon. Friends will assist me in that regard.
I shall briefly explain the purposes of the Bill. It is to relocate the present market in Tower Hamlets to a fresh site in the London borough of Waltham Forest, although a tiny spot of the new site is in Hackney. It is to adapt and to amend many of the local enactments that are applicable to Spitalfields so that they apply to the market on its new site, but otherwise to make no significant changes to market regulation law. It is also to require the corporation to offer accommodation in the relocated market to traders at Spitalfields market and at Stratford market, which is about one and a half miles from the relocation site. The only reason why the Bill must be promoted is that any proposal to move the market elsewhere and to apply existing legislation can be authorised only by an Act of Parliament.

Mr. Tony Banks: Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that the Bill is before us because the present Spitalfields site is governed by statute? Parliament must give approval to redevelop that site. But approval is not required for the establishment of a market at Temple Mills. Indeed, if the Bill goes through, a new statutory market will be set up in Temple Mills, which does not require a statute, competing with a non-statutory market, that of Stratford in my constituency.

Sir Geoffrey Finsberg: I thought that I made it clear that the only reason for the Bill was to apply existing regulations to a new site. The only way to do that is by introducing a new Bill.
The Bill is brief. It has a short title, definitions and an appointed day, so that one may advertise the making of the resolution for the alteration of the site. It provides an appointed day so that the new site may be substituted for the existing site, and that all obligations and liabilities shall go to the new site and operate on the new site as from that day.

Mr. Sydney Chapman: My hon. Friend explained that, under the existing statute, it is necessary to bring the measure before the House because it proposes to move the market site. Notwithstanding that, and the fact that there will be redevelopment on the old site, which I understand is in the London borough of Tower Hamlets, will he confirm that both sites and both development proposals have been given planning permission by the respective local planning authorities? Presumably they will have taken local opinion into consideration, even though the Secretary of State thinks that it is not necessary on this occasion to hold a public inquiry.

Sir Geoffrey Finsberg: I answer my hon. Friend briefly by saying yes, but I shall deal later with planning implications.
One clause sets out the details of offering sites to traders at Spitalfields and Stratford markets. It is important to emphasise that both groups of traders will be offered sites and will be able to occupy new accommodation at the same time. If hon. Members bear that point in mind, they will see why it is relevant to Stratford market. Another clause provides for a slightly higher scale of fines for road traffic offences in the new market. Clause 7 repeals parts of the Spitalfields enactments that are totally spent or otiose. Clause 8 is formal, and shows that all costs of the Bill have been met out of the general rate of the City.
If the Bill is not carried, Spitalfields market will remain in its present condition. It will not close, because it is a good market in which there is only about 1 per cent. of vacant trading space, but it will decline and contract as a result of buildings growing older and becoming increasingly unsuitable for modern handling and storage techniques. There will be continuing heavy traffic congestion in the area and limited parking facilities for traders' and buyers' activities. One cannot resolve those problems by renovating existing buildings. So the problems, which are already well known to anyone who goes to Spitalfields, as I have done on and off for more than 30 years, are obvious.
As the market slowly declined, bits might well be redeveloped, but there would be no opportunity of redeveloping the whole to a proper development brief which would provide significant planning gain. Therefore, although there might be modest developments, those who saw that the Bill had not gone through would not be interested in putting resources into a major scheme.
The City explains the situation in the brief that has gone, I think, to every Member of the House, and I want to make only four points at this stage.
The corporation reached its decision only after lengthy tendering processes. It took close account of the traders' wish to move to the Temple Mills site and no other. The development group had obtained planning permission from the London borough of Tower Hamlets for the proposed redevelopment of the Spitalfields site from the London borough of Waltham Forest for the construction of a new market building on the Temple Mills site and from the London borough of Hackney for an access road. So three local authorities—Tower Hamlets, Waltham Forest and Hackney—have given their approval. Alas, I have to report that none of them is controlled by the Conservative party.
The case for the move rests upon a variety of propositions. At present Spitalfields is grossly unsatisfactory in planning and traffic terms, and there are many more desirable uses for the site than as a wholesale market. The existing buildings, as anyone who has examined them will know, are unsatisfactory and need extensive work. There is need for rationalisation of markets in east London. That has been considered on previous occasions and it is believed that this fits nicely into what was seen. Temple Mills is the best available site because there is not much likelihood of the site for a large modern market with modern access, ancillary facilities and parking being available elsewhere. The Spitalfields traders overwhelmingly support the move, to the extent of about 80 per cent. of their number.
Unsuccessful efforts were made which would have moved the market to the site of the Stratford market in the constituency of the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks). Indeed, it was the only possible site other than Temple Mills. Stratford market comprises between 20 and 25 traders—about a quarter of the number at Spitalfields—but its site would be large enough for a combined market. However, it has many disadvantages. The road network at Temple Mills is better than that at Stratford and will be even better when the M11 extension has been completed in about 1993. The M11 extension would not greatly assist the market at Stratford. The Stratford site is not owned by the company that put in the development proposal but is owned in part by the gas hoard, and its land is known to be polluted. The Stratford site has a variety of entrances and exits which make it much less secure and more difficult to manage than the Temple Mills site, which would be enclosed, with only one main access and egress point.
There is a considerable number of residential dwellings in the vicinity of the Stratford site and the market would therefore be environmentally less acceptable than on the Temple Mills site, which has alongside it basically only railway marshalling yards and sports fields; and 110 Spitalfields traders would have to relocate to a new market at Stratford, while the 20 to 25 Stratford traders would remain where they are. The Spitalfields traders could not accept that state of affairs because it would give those already in situ an unfair advantage, whereas at Temple Mills all would start at the same time, and with incomparably better accommodation.
There are at Spitalfields about 30 residential tenants. Many of them have the right to buy under the appropriate legislation and the corporation has promised to keep them informed of development proposals, which it has. It is perhaps worth noting that those tenants have formed a body called the Spitalfields market residents action group. That body has not petitioned against the Bill. Indeed, many of the residential tenants are in favour of the proposed move of the market but wish to remain in their existing accommodation if that move takes place. This can be achieved because in the development plans the residential units have been included in the building lease to the development group, but the corporation will take back a long lease of those units, notwithstanding that there was a quite considerable reduction in the valuation thereby.
The agreement with the developers makes it clear that, while demolition works and the construction of new buildings are going on, they will comply fully with the corporation's requirements for the protection of residential sub-tenants. In its planning agreement Tower Hamlets has restricted work on the site to between 8 am and 6 pm, from Monday to Friday and 8 am and 1 pm on Saturdays. Environmental health officers will of course have powers to stop operations that are a nuisance.
The Spitalfields development group has offered the Spitalfields traders the sum of £7·5 million and the Stratford traders the sum of £1,125,000, through their respective tenants' associations, if the Bill is enacted and the move takes place. This will help the traders to relocate. None of that money is being offered by the corporation.
As I have said to my hon. Friends whose objections have been met by the undertaking that has been drawn up between the Covent Garden market authority and the corporation—and I have a particular interest in the Covent Garden market because I think that I am the only

Member present who served on the Committee when we reconstructed the finances of the authority in 1977—I do not believe that its future is in any way threatened by the Bill's proposals.
There were two anxieties. One was that the new Spitalfields market would be too large for the combined markets at Stratford and Spitalfields. That was not the intention and it would not have been sensible. That has been made clear in the undertaking. The second anxiety was that low rents would be used to attract Covent Garden tenants. Again, that is covered. It would be foolish for the corporation even to have thought of doing that. The undertaking makes the situation clear.
As for the size of the market, planning permission has been obtained for a market hall of some 300,000 sq ft gross. That was settled by measuring the trading area and the storage space and making allowance for the extensive use that is made of the public highway to store goods. Planning permission also includes 40,000 sq ft for any Stratford traders. But the planning permission represents the optimum provision and there is no intention of creating additional trading space. Any trader who wanted to lease a larger area would have to make out a very strong case. An undertaking was given and that has now been passed on.
Much of what is said in the various instructions shows—it may not be intended, but this is how it appears—a desire to interfere in the proper local government planning business. Each of the responsible local authorities has looked at these proposals and given, in its own respect, planning approval. I can imagine the uproar if a proposal had come from the Conservatives to interfere with local authority planning proposals in a matter such as this.

Mr. Peter Shore: To set the record straight, I should tell the hon. Gentleman that the proposal to give planning permission to the Spitalfields market development has never been debated by Tower Hamlets council. It was voted on there, but under the extraordinary, almost bizzare, arrangements of the council, the borough is divided into five or six neighbourhoods, and it was left to a neighbourhood group to come to the decision, which I think was made on a majority of two.

Sir Geoffrey Finsberg: I remember that a majority of one in the House was sufficient to nationalise shipbuilding, a rather dubious decision.
I have here a letter from. Councillor Patrick Streeter who makes the position clear:
The Council … supports the relocation because it will make possible a significant improvement in the environment of West Spitalfields, particularly reductions in heavy vehicle movements at night time, and in problems of rubbish disposal.
He also confirms the
Council's support for the relocation of Spitalfields Wholesale Market to the proposed site at Temple Mills.
If the right hon. Gentleman is saying that the borough council of Tower Hamlets acted illegally or improperly, he has his remedy, and so has anyone else, by going to law, but he knows that the council has acted within the law, otherwise it would have been challenged.

Ms. Mildred Gordon: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the three councillors who represent the Spitalfields ward are opposed to the proposal?

Sir Geoffrey Finsberg: It is interesting that most of the people who live there are not, which is somewhat different. Nothing was said a moment ago to prove that the proposal interferes with the planning wishes of a local authority.
Support has come, as I said, from Tower Hamlets council. Perhaps just as important is a letter from the chairman of Spitalfields market tenants' association who says:
From the very outset I have personally supported the move for relocation and was more pleased than anyone that more than 80 per cent. of my Association voted in favour of the move … The proposed site at Temple Mills offers a self contained and purpose built market on a secure site … It offers both suppliers and customers a very high standard of handling facilities … On site, control and efficient vehicle circulation with improved parking facilities … will be conducive to good training conditions and attractive access for employees … The fact that the site is enclosed will enable much better control to be exercised over what is now an escalating problem of unsupervised rubbish dumping.
I paid a visit there yesterday at approximately 3 o'clock and, even though the local authority is paid to clear away the rubbish, the area was a disgrace. If the three councillors for the ward were doing their job, they would be active in trying to get the place cleared up. I suggest that anyone who went there at 3 o'clock might not want those conditions to continue.
I have tried to be brief. There is a lot more that I could explain, but I shall reserve the rest of my remarks for later. The issues are complex in their intertwining but simple in their objective. The local authorities are in favour. The Spitalfields traders are in favour. There are safeguards for Covent Garden and fair offers for Stratford. I do not think I can do better than end with one more quotation from the letter from the chairman of Spitalfields market tenants' association—this may cover the point in the instruction:
An East London complex which offers accommodation to traders from Spitalfields and from Stratford will, in my view, result in a sensible rationalisation of fruit and vegetable sales and distribution in London. Our enthusiasm is strong and our commitment to the move beyond doubt. My Committee feels … that we are now presented with a chance of moving from a market built for horses and carts to a market designed and built for the 21st century. This is not a moment to support restrictive practices or to fight progress but to take up the challenge and secure Spitalfields Market for a further century or two.
That was to be my last quotation but perhaps I ought to make just one more. It is from a letter dated 10 May from the Transport and General Workers Union to all TGWU-sponsored Members of Parliament; in the list are Mr. Tony Banks, Mr. Syd Bidwell, Mr. Peter Shore, Mr. Allan Roberts and about thirty others. The letter says:
I am writing to you now as a matter of urgency to inform you that in the last couple of days my branch has reached a satisfactory agreement with the SMTA with regard to compensation for our members. We have therefore withdrawn our petition against the Bill and, once again, are keen to give it our unreserved support. May I urge you therefore to do all you can on 12th May to support the passage of the Bill.
Yours fraternally
Markets Officer, TGWU.

Mr. Peter Shore: The Bill is about two issues. The first covers the transfer of Spitalfields market to a new site at Temple Mills in the borough of Waltham Forest. The second is about the points that arise from the proposed redevelopment of the

11-acre site which Spitalfields market comprises in the borough of Tower Hamlets. The two issues are indissolubly linked.
One major defect of the private Bill procedure is that the Bill deals with the transfer of the market. Of course, that is one reason why we have a somewhat incongruous person on the Treasury Bench—the Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. I readily acknowledge that he has an interest in the matter, but I doubt whether he would claim that it was the predominant interest among those affected by the Bill. One would have thought that a Minister from the Department of the Environment would have been a more appropriate person to speak on the Bill. I say that without wishing to quarrel with the Minister of State.
There have been defects in the speech of the hon. Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Sir G. Finsberg). He could not, or did not wish to, deal with the major issue of what is to happen to an important and crucial inner city site. I have no objection to his expounding on the clauses of the Bill and on his belief, which I challenge, about the sentiments and motives of various people who were quoted by him, as well as many others who were not.

Sir Geoffrey Finsberg: I made it clear that I was making a brief speech. I could have explained the matter in considerable detail, but the House does not like lengthy speeches. I should be delighted to explain in much more detail, if the right hon. Gentleman wants it, exactly what will happen, but I think the right hon. Gentleman knows. I shall leave him to it, but I shall follow up what he says if need be.

Mr. Shore: Perhaps I should declare an interest. I am the Member of Parliament who represents the City of London Spitalfields market area. I have had intimate contact with the whole of that area for the past 25 years.
I said that it was a major defect of the Bill that it dealt only with issues relating to the transfer of the market. There is no mention of the redevelopment proposals for the Spitalfields market site. Although it was referred to in the hon. Gentleman's introductory remarks, there is no mention of the Spitalfields development group which is the principal agent of change, not only to provide the alternative market site in Temple Mills but to build a new market there, and which is to redevelop the vacated market site in Spitalfields.
The link between the provision of a new market at Temple Mills and the redevelopment design for the old Spitalfields market site is crucial. Meeting the cost of relocating to Temple Mills is possible only because of the large profits that the Spitalfields development group believes that it will make from its own proposals for the redevelopment of the present Spitalfields market site. The attraction of the whole package to the City of London corporation is the large capital sums and ongoing revenues that it will receive as a result of the deal. My speech must inevitably deal with the issues of relocation of the market and with the larger issue of the redevelopment of the Spitalfields market site.
On the question of relocation, I begin with the preamble to the Bill, which states:
(1) The age and condition of Spitalfields Market is such that the market fails to meet modern market needs and practices and the situation of the market is inconvenient for transport facilities and proper regulation:
(2) The impracticability of providing satisfactory accommodation for the market in new premises on or near the site


of the existing market makes it expedient that provision be made to move the market to a new site available at Temple Mills in the London Boroughs of Hackney and Waltham Forest.
Those are highly contentious assertions, as the City of London corporation knows. They are challenged in at least three of the six petitions that have been deposited against the Bill. We learnt from the hon. Member for Hampstead and Highgate that that number has been reduced by one. The Transport and General Workers Union, about which I will comment in a moment, has also dropped its petition.
The City of London corporation acknowledges in its report of 22 October 1987 on the future of Spitalfields market that there was
no overriding reason to relocate the market. We were aware, however, of an apparent desire on the part of the Market Traders and possibly the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, for the market to be moved.
Of course, there are problems with the Spitalfields market. The hon. Member for Hampstead and Highgate and the City of London corporation's report agree with that view. Many of the buildings are old; the standard of cleansing is far from satisfactory; it generates heavy traffic; and there is congestion in the surrounding streets.
The report of the City of London corporation concluded:
despite these factors, the market is relatively successful and it has to be said that not all the problems are insurmountable: e.g. with the co-operation of the local authority (Tower Hamlets) and the Metropolitan Police much could be done to alleviate rubbish dumping and traffic congestion respectively. More space could be found in the area for vehicle parking and the Corporation could consider taking control of the surrounding streets in order to regulate the whole trading area.
Let us be clear at the start. We are not dealing with a decaying market that is no longer profitable so that its transfer to an alternative site is imperative. On the contrary, we are dealing with a market which—in the words of the City of London corporation—is
a victim of its own success.
The corporation does not add much to its case with the assertions in its recent brochure in which it stated:
Establishing a market at Temple Mills meets the objectives set out in the 1985 report of the Conservative Back Bench Horticultural Committee which was chaired by Sir John Wells. The Committee envisaged three London markets in the 1990s, west, central and east, and wanted the Corporation to run the eastern market.
A similar objective was expressed in the published conclusions of the O'Cathin report 1981 that was commissioned by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.
The City of London corporation, having little solid backing for its case, is quoting what would appear to be two authoritative reports. But that is not so. The report by Sir John Wells—a former colleague who represented Maidstone and was a considerable horticultural grower himself, especially of fruit—was never published. The public cannot assess in any way what weight to attach to what he had to say. The O'Cathain report has also remained unpublished. The report was prepared primarily to consider the grading of horticultural produce. The report did not make any proposal for the relocation of the Spitalfields market, but found that, of all the London fruit and vegetable markets, it was the one working most effectively. That deals with the alleged authority of those two reports.

Mr. Ron Davies: Today I made inquiries of the House of Commons Library to find out whether the O'Cathain report, commissioned by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in the 1980s, had been published. I was informed that not only had the research paper not been published, but that it was not available in the House of Commons Library. I have made inquiries, and one firm conclusion of the report was that the Government should be responsible for a strategic plan for the markets of London. It seems odd that we have not received that strategic plan or any movement towards the development of such a plan. In fact, the Government are giving tacit support to the piecemeal development of London markets by means of a private Bill.

Mr. Shore: My hon. Friend reinforces my point. I will come later to the question of the strategic planning of horticultural markets in London.
The retention of the market in Spitalfields has been the consistent view of the Tower Hamlets council, which throughout the 1970s rejected proposals to relocate the market. The council changed its mind only last year when a new Liberal council gained control of the town hall with a majority of two. Relocation is not confined to whether the existing market can continue to be viable or is capable of improvement. As the petitions made clear, there is anxiety in Stratford about the adverse effects on the existing market of the proposed transfer to Temple Mills, which is only one and a quarter miles away. I shall not pursue the issues involved in the Stratford petitions because I know that my hon. Friends the Members for Newham, North-East (Mr. Leighton), for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) and for Newham, South (M r. Spearing) will have a good deal to say about that matter.
Worries of a different kind about relocation are contained in the petition of Mr. Alan Thomerson, on the grounds that the Bill
fails to offer a better situation at the new site, except in so far as within the actual bounds of the new site, whereas the external traffic generated by the market will only add to an already traffic-saturated area.
That is his judgment of the proposed new site. It should be noted that this petitioner is a director of four companies trading within the Spitalfields market.
Another major relocation issue was raised in the petition of the Covent Garden authority and the Covent Garden tenants' association. We have learnt from the hon. Member for Hampstead and Highgate that that has now been withdrawn. Nevertheless, it is worth considering the points that those organisations made. They point out that there are currently five wholesale horticultural markets in London. Their major contention is that, due to an increase in direct trading between growers and importers, on the one hand, and supermarket chains, on the other, the proportion of produce passing through all the London wholesale markets has declined and is likely to continue to decline. Therefore, the Covent Garden petitioners make the entirely sensible point in their petition that
before a new market is established at Temple Mills an independent assessment should be made, firstly, as to the need for such a new Market at all, having regard to the number of horticultural markets that already exist in London and t he expectation of the continuing decline in the wholesale market trade; secondly, as to where would be the optimum location of any new market; and thirdly, as to the size of any new market, the need for which is shown to be justified.


They are also worried that the other London wholesale fruit and vegetable markets could be subjected to unfair competition from the new market at Temple Mills owing, as they put it, to the
unduly favourable terms as to the rents payable and the costs of services and the provision of plant and equipment there, made possible by the very profitable redevelopment of the existing market by the Spitalfields Development Group.
The hon. Member for Hampstead and Highgate has told us that they have been satisfied on that point. They have been satisfied that unduly favourable conditions, which would undermine competitiveness, would not be offered to the new tenants of Temple Mills market if it is established. However, I did not hear the hon. Gentleman say that they had withdrawn their remarks about the need for a thorough appraisal of the need for a new market and where a new market should go. Therefore, I assume that the points made then, which are serious and major points, still remain. I should have thought that common sense alone would have pointed to the need for a proper appraisal of London's need for wholesale fruit and vegetable markets before allowing any major development of the sort before us this evening to proceed.
One of our problems is that there is now no Londonwide strategic authority to give an objective appraisal of proposals of this sort. Such proposals have implications that go far wider than the concerns of the boroughs immediately involved.

Mr. Nigel Spearing: Before my right hon. Friend leaves the matter of relocation, will he provide me with information linked to the point that he made about Covent Garden? Does he recall that when Covent Garden was changed to its new location at Nine Elms, further Bills had to be brought before the House on the matter of keeping it going? Far from the question of subsidy, can my right hon. Friend tell the House whether there is any likelihood of the new rents at the possible site at Temple Mills being greater than if the market remained at Spitalfields, thereby making trading conditions more difficult or adding to the costs of wholesale markets in London? Would that not be an additional factor to be looked at to ensure that conditions, apart from other factors, were appropriate at Temple Mills and that new traders could get in there just as easily as they can get into Spitalfields today?

Mr. Shore: My hon. Friend has raised an interesting point. However, the information that I have at present and the fact that the Covent Garden market tenants' association has withdrawn its petition can only lead me to assume that it has been satisfied that unduly advantageous terms will not be offered to the new tenants at Temple Mills. Similarly, I assume that the market traders now in Spitalfields have been given some assurance that the rents will not be too high.

Mr. Spearing: For how long?

Mr. Shore: I do not know. My hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South has raised the question of how long initial leases will last and the processes under which new leases will be negotiated.

Sir Geoffrey Finsberg: I want to be as helpful as I can. This was agreed late this afternoon. I shall read the relevant clause of the undertaking. It says:
Market Traders to whom the intended Act applies will be offered leases of premises at the Market Hall on the new site for a term of six years from the date of their occupation of such premises, with a rent review after three years of said term, such review to be based on the Retail Price Index from time to time, subject to a maximum increase in rents of 9 per cent&During the said term no conditions of a financial character more favourable to Market Traders will be offered or granted by the Corporation and the service charge at the new site will be borne in full by the Market Traders without subsidy and the Corporation will be responsible for any service charges attributable to unoccupied lettable space.

Mr. Shore: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for providing the information. I should have thought that that was a reasonable guarantee for the first six years. However, people think beyond that time. Obviously, they have to make their own judgment. The way in which rents for commercial property have been moving in London in recent years makes me believe that a substantial increase in rents can be expected in the future.
I have made the point about the Greater London council not being available to give any judgment on a strategic wholesale market site in London. With the abolition of the GLC, which previously performed that function, we now have only the London planning advisory committee to influence London planning. That is a sort of statutory committee set up in the aftermath of the demise of the GLC.
I wrote to the chief planning officer, asking whether he and his people had considered the strategic London need for fruit and vegetable markets. He said:
Thank you for your letter dated 29 February . . . and the information on the Bill. As yet LPAC has not been able to fully consider the strategic problems of London's wholesale markets. An officer level 'Retail Topic Working Party' has considered the issue . . . They have identified the declining role of London's wholesale fruit, vegetable and flower markets . . . However, this will need much more careful research and consideration before the LPAC could give advice in any more robust form.
Therefore, there is no authority based upon the London planning advisory committee. Indeed, it goes on to say:
The rationalisation and relocation of the wholesale markets could have significant strategic planning consequences. However, LPAC is at present fully occupied in the preparation of and consultation on Strategic Planning Advice for London to the Secretary of State for the Environment.
That consideration has come far too late to assist us in considering what the Government are proposing. I have said that it seemed to be common sense to have an inquiry of the sort that I have mentioned, and I adhere to that view.
In its recently published brochure, from which I quoted earlier, the City of London corporation makes much of the support that has so far been mobilised for the market's move. The hon. Member for Hampstead and Highgate referred to the views of the tenants and other people connected with the market. The corporation says:
the decision to relocate follows extensive consultation and has the overwhelming support of tenants of Spitalfields&the proposed move to Temple Mills is supported by the vast majority of Spitalfields Tenants and their customers. It is supported by the London Borough of Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest to grant planning permission for the redevelopment of Spitalfields Market site and the construction of the new relocated market respectively.


I do not dispute that the majority of market tenants are now resigned to the inevitability of moving. However, it is not clear to me that they ever felt that they had a genuine choice—certainly not during the past few months.
The GLC carried out a study of east end London markets in 1985. Of the 100 market tenants—there are just 100 of them—70 replied to the detailed questionnaire. A total of 59 found real advantages in the present site at Spitalfields and 69 of the 70 had no immediate plans to relocate their business. The claims of the hon. Member for Hampstead and Highgate and the City of London corporation about the great popularity of the move should be partially offset by that quotation.
Whatever can be said about the 100 market tenants, no such claim for support can be made on behalf of the inhabitants of Spitalfields. Indeed, I have a long list of community groups and associations, small businesses and persons living in Spitalfields who oppose the proposed redevelopment. They make up the campaign to save Spitalfields from the developers and they have petitioned against the Bill. The list includes the Spitalfields small business association, the Spitalfields community farm, the governing bodies of local schools, the tenants' associations in Herbert and Jacobson houses, Wheeler house, the Montefiore, St. Mary's and Davenant community centres, the Spitalfields housing and planning rights service, the Tower Hamlets homeless families campaign, the three councillors for the Spitalfields ward—to whom my hon. Friend and neighbour the Member for Bow and Poplar (Ms. Gordon) referred—and the whole Labour group on the London borough of Tower Hamlets, which is 24 councillors strong.
I might add that the redevelopment proposals for Spitalfields market have never been discussed by the Tower Hamlets council. They have been debated only in the so-called Bethnal Green neighbourhood, which includes the Spitalfields, Weavers and St. Peter's wards, where the Liberals have a majority of one.

Mr. Simon Hughes: Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that local authorities are entitled to delegate planning decisions to a neighbourhood committee in which a proper process is gone through and a decision taken by a majority vote? The composition of that committee reflects the balance on the council as a whole. Therefore, the decision would probably be no different had it been taken by the whole council. In any event, the site was owned by the City. Therefore, proposals for development of the site are a matter for the City and the local authority, Tower Hamlets, only has planning control—

Mr. Spearing: Only?

Mr. Hughes: Yes, only. It does not have the power to determine the development that is to take place on the site. That decision resides with the owners, the City of London.

Mr. Shore: The hon. Gentleman is over-generous to the Liberal council in Tower Hamlets. We understand his political affiliations, but he knows very well that there are many examples that we could use to show that Tower Hamlets is not the most sensitive council in Britain or London today. Indeed, it has shown a marked insensitivity in dealing with what is, after all, the biggest area for redevelopment in the borough, other than the docklands area which has been torn from the council's clutches by the

London Docklands development corporation. We hoped that the 100 acres of land available would be used for the benefit of the people of Tower Hamlets. Instead, they have been used for many developments, very few of which are of benefit at all to the people of the borough.

Mr. Hughes: The right hon. Gentleman and I have identical views on the docklands corporation. The LDDC took land from the local authority, following a decision by the Government and the House over which the local authority had no control. The difference is that in this case neither the Government nor the local authority have any control over the ownership of the site. The site remains in the ownership of the City of London and the City has therefore always been the proposer of schemes. In the case of the LDDC, council-owned land was taken away by Government order and handed to the development corporation.

Mr. Shore: The hon. Gentleman understates the powerful position that development control gives to local councils. The power to say no to proposed developments is the power to initiate, or at least encourage, alternative proposals, and Tower Hamlets can justifiably be accused of failing to use precisely that power.
Let me deal with the area itself—Spitalfields—and the proposals for the market redevelopment that the Bill will release upon it. On the Department of the Environment's figures and the old GLC's index of social needs, Spitalfields is the most deprived ward not only in Tower Hamlets but in the whole of London. During a visit there last year, His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales commented that it reminded him in many ways of a Third-world country. The great problems of Spitalfields are housing and unemployment. It is now as it has been for the past three centuries—a working class and multi-ethnic community. It was the main point of settlement for the Huguenot community expelled from France in 1685. It attracted the heaviest settlement of east European and Russian Jews fleeing from the pogroms of Tsarist Russia at the end of the 19th century. In the past 25 years it has become a focal point for the Bangladeshi community, which is now the largest group of residents in the Spitalfields ward.
Spitalfields' main manufacturing activitives are clothing and the leather trade. People are employed in small workshops, often in very poor environmental conditions. Although Spitalfields is an industrious community, it has high unemployment, reflecting the general contraction that has taken place in Britain's manufacturing industry. Last September Greater London as a whole had 11·9 per cent. unemployment, whereas Spitalfields had 20·4 per cent., and the figures for January suggest that the discrepancy is now even greater. The 1981 census showed that 63 per cent. of the residents were manual or semi-skilled workers. With a high birth rate and growing population in Spitalfields and with the cessation of local authority housebuilding in recent years, the housing problems of Spitalfields have become acute. Several hundred Bengali families in bed-and-breakfast accommodation are under the threat of eviction from the Tower Hamlets Liberal council. Thousands more are living in conditions of chronic overcrowding in run-down estates. No one who has had any contact with the area can doubt that its major need is for more and improved housing and modern workshops for its clothing and other industries.
There is virtually no land available for development in the Spitalfields area or the borough of Tower Hamlets, other than Spitalfields market. I repeat that the London borough of Tower Hamlets lost out grievously through the transfer of land by vesting orders to the London Docklands development corporation.
It is against the background of Spitalfields' clamant needs that we must judge the proposals put forward by the Spitalfield development group. The central proposal of the group—no mention of this was made by the sponsor of the Bill—is to construct three substantial office complexes, totalling 885,000 sq ft. In particular, as the city's report put it,
The proposal to redevelop the Spitalfields site will provide office accommodation for the Financial City.
There will be a retail centre comprising approximately 80,000 sq ft of lettable space, to cater for a broad range of shopping requirements. As the Spitalfields development group put it in its own brochure, letting policy—this will really please the people of Spitalfields—
will ensure that the mix covers a wide spectrum including quality restaurants, wine bars and cafés.
There will be 64,000 sq ft for small business units and 200,000 sq ft for housing accommodation.
A section 52 agreement has been made with the London borough of Tower Hamlets, the most important part of which is the provision of 118 units of residential accommodation to be released to the three housing associations operating in the area. In addition, there is to be a community trust with—2·5 million of capital to assist businesses and to improve the environment. Further provisions include an undertaking by the Spitalfields development group
to use its reasonable endeavours to procure that throughout the phased programme its retained building contractors for the development . . . provide a number ... of on-site training opportunities for persons whose normal residence is within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in appropriate skills related to the Construction industry.
There is to be a grant of ·50,000 a year to the Tower Hamlets Association for Technology Training. Premises are to he provided for a law centre and a fashion centre.
These are not negligible gains, but they must be seen against the background of the major office development in the area, the enormous financial sums which will be made by the development group and the exceptional housing and other needs of the Spitalfields community. Moreover, as we know from recent bitter experience in other parts of our borough, major office redevelopment leads to soaring site values in adjacent areas. Small businesses in the area of Spitalfields, which often now pay a low £3 to £5 per sq ft rental for their premises, will be faced with massive rent increases or will simply be bought up for more lucrative office and commercial development.
There will be strong pressures on local housing estates to be decanted and sold for privatisation. House prices in general will soar in the Spitalfields and Stepney areas. Already there is evidence of this. Earlier this year, in Wilkes street, in the heart of Spitalfields, a grade 2 listed dilapidated four-storey house was marketed for £250,000. On 27 January this year, the Daily Telegraph reported:
An early 19th century cottage in Woodsere St., off Brick Lane, is attracting considerable interest at £189,000. Four adjoining terraced houses—part of the same 1826 development—arc being sensitively restored for sale at £225,000 to £250,000.

That is great news, but I am afraid that not many people in Spitalfields will be able to take advantage of refurbished houses at such prices.

Mr. Ron Leighton: Will my right hon. Friend consider what can be done with the £50,000 per annum for training? A YTS trainee at an institute of technology costs about £4,500 per annum. If my calculations are right, £50,000 would enable between 10 and 12 young people to be trained. Is that in any way adequate?

Mr. Shore: I am glad that my hon. Friend has made that point because it brings out the minimal contribution to the area's training needs that this section 52 agreement will allow. My hon. Friend's point about a component of the section 52 agreement could be made about virtually all of them. They are inadequate in terms of what they supply. The members of the Tower Hamlets council were taken for a ride. They could have secured a far better section 52 agreement if they had set their minds to it and been a bit more experienced in the business of looking after a council and its needs.

Mr. Spearing: Can my right hon. Friend give us some information about the Bishopsgate site? I understand that arrangements for another 2 million sq ft of office space have already been made for that empty site. Is that not enough for the area? Would it not be better to keep the present mix and ameliorate some of the problems that may come from the development? Was the decision made by a small neighbourhood committee or by the council?

Mr. Shore: The Bishopsgate development is outside the borough of Tower Hamlets but is immediately adjacent to it. Large office developments are being made in the borough and nearby.
The overall effect on the Spitalfields community of these proposed redevelopments needs an effort of imagination to comprehend. One long-term resident of Spitalfields, Mr. Ralph Samuel, put it forcefully and succinctly in an article in The Guardian last November when he wrote:
It should be obvious to all but the self-deceived that to stick an international banking centre in the heart of an old artisan and market quarter, a huge complex with some 6,000 executives and subalterns, is, to put it gently, a rupture from tradition.
It drives a wedge into the heart of the district, a wall of offices separating the North from the South. It destroys the century old frontier between the East End and the City, opening up the former to the spread of banking and finance. A lot of people will lose their jobs when the market is flattened and numbers of market related businesses could be expected to go to the wall…the market scheme will mean a social revolution, the inversion of what Spitalfields has stood for during four centuries of Metropolitan Development".
Of course, the City of London needs new offices to accommodate the expansion of financial services, following the big bang and the internationalisation of the money markets, and to house the new technology which market makers need. But office building does not have to be, and should not be, the primary claimant on all available land in the City or its adjacent boroughs. There are other values—architectural and community—that must also be defended. The trouble is that office building is by far the most lucrative form of development in inner London. If return on capital, regardless of other


considerations, is allowed to be the arbiter of future development, not only Spitalfields but many other communities will be ripped apart.
Office rents in the City of London rose between 1979 and 1985 from just over £20 to just over £40 per sq ft—a 100 per cent. increase. Between 1985 and 1987—the period of the big bang— rents soared from just over £40 to about £75 per sq ft. Unfortunately, the official collection and publication of data on commercial floor space in London terminated in 1985. The Government thought that it was no longer a matter of public interest even to record, let alone guide and control, the number of new offices in the London area. Since then, figures have been unofficial and incomplete, but from the speech made by the chairman of the City of London planning and communications committee at Mansion house on 2 December 1987, we learnt that during 1987 a record 13 million sq ft of office space was under construction within the square mile.
In the City of London, planned development has been radically revised, as the recently adopted City of London local plan makes clear. That local plan has been accepted by the Department of the Environment. I know that that is not really a matter for the Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, but I assure him that that is the case. The Department of the Environment and the Secretary of State for the Environment approved it. The City of London local plan said:
Offices are the predominant land use in the City forming 65–5 million sq. ft., 68 per cent. of all floor space ..
For the City to continue and expand as an international financial centre it must be able to provide accommodation that meets the changing needs of the financial services centre. The Corporation intends that office developments be encouraged so as to cater for these requirements.
The office boom has not been confined to the City of London. Substantial new office developments have taken place in virtually all adjacent boroughs. My hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South has already referred to the great development at Bishopsgate, which I understand is a development of 4 million sq ft. In Tower Hamlets 10 million sq ft are to be developed in the Canary Wharf development. I am sure hon. Members on both sides of the House saw the picture of the Prime Minister yesterday sitting on a mechanical piledriver—an appropriate instrument for her to control—digging the foundations for that development, which is now under way. The docklands light railway is now being extended to the Bank to provide direct communications with the City. Given the exuberance of the office building boom and the substantial setback that black Monday brought to the expansion of financial services, I do not know whether there will soon be an over-supply of office accommodation; but I have seen a confidential report, which cost the Tower Hamlets council £5,000. It was never published or followed up, but it showed that, in the view of the consultants who were asked to report on the matter, there was a gloomy prospect of the dangers of over-supply outside the square mile and in the Spitalfields development.
We no longer have the base of information, following the Government's abandonment of the collection of official information, by which we can seriously judge. But I am clear on one point: the 800,000 sq ft of new office space that the Spitalfields development group is to build on the Spitalfields market site will have only a marginal effect on the total supply of new offices in central London, but a most devastating effect on Spitalfields.
It is wrong that a development of such size and importance as that described in the Spitalfields development group plan for Spitalfields market should be decided by a group of inexperienced and short-sighted councillors in Tower Hamlets, by the City of London corporation and by the Spitalfields development group. Within such a group the overriding consideration is not the welfare of the people who live in the area, but financial gain. For the City of London, the owner of Spiltalfields market, the gains are enormous. From the sale of the long-term lease of Spitalfields market it will receive more than £60 million. The cost of constructing the new market and of obtaining the alternative site in Temple Mills is worth a further £34·5 million. And that is not all. The City of London corporation will receive an initial ground rent of £500,000 a year, which is about twice what it is getting from the existing rentals of Spitalfields market, rising to 5 per cent. of the rack rental of the offices, when they are developed. That is estimated to he worth about £2 million a year when development is complete.
The prospect of such rewards does not exactly encourage cool and disinterested judgment of what is best for the development of Spitalfields. For the Spitalfields development group the rewards are unknown. The group has been coy about gains and costs. The financial and property press speaks of a £500 million urban redevelopment scheme. Twelve international banks have each provided more than £26 million in loans, totalling about £315 million, to underwrite the Spitalfields development group's venture. The developers are to provide £175 million, adding up to a total of £500 million. If the City of London is to be provided with the £94 million in cash and assets that I have mentioned, and an annual £2 million of the ongoing profits from office development, there must be large rewards for the Spitalfields development group. The planning gain for Tower Hamlets is estimated at between £18 million and £20 million.
The most culpable parties to this story are Tower Hamlets council and the Secretary of State for the Environment. The council should not have given planning permission and, knowing the importance of this site, the Secretary of State should have called in the redevelopment plan for Spitalfields market, appointed an inspector and made sure that the various possibilities for the redevelopment of the site were fully and impartially considered. The public inquiry should also have considered the cases for and against the retention of the existing market, the alternatives for its relocation, and the general strategy for market development in London.
Instead, the Secretary of State has been supine and inactive. Today, he wrote to tell me that, now that all the planning procedures have gone through, he no longer has a role to play. He has written himself out of the script of the redevelopment of Spitalfields and left all the decisions to the pull of market forces and the test of profit. Covent Garden was called in, as was Coin street—but not Spitalfields. This is a classic example of the Government's inner city policy.
For all those reasons, my hon. Friends and I have tabled a reasoned amendment declining to give a Second Reading to a Bill
which authorises the transfer of the Spitalfields Market to a different site without any previous public inquiry either into the merits of such a transfer or into the most beneficial way of redeveloping the vacated site.


It is for those reasons also that we tabled the three separate instructions to the Committee.

Mr. Robert G. Hughes: I listened with great interest to the speech of the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore), who is the local Member for Spitalfields. It took us back in the history of major projects and ideas for London. It was a study in negativism, claiming that if only we had a bit more time we could do something rather better. It was a study, too, of why the Labour party, which, for most of Tower Hamlets' existence, was unopposed on the council—candidates were often unopposed when standing for the council—now has a minority of seats on it. Labour Members did not understand why that happened, and the right hon. Gentleman's speech led me to believe that they still do not understand why.
I could not understand from the right hon. Gentleman's protracted remarks of whom he is supposed to be in favour. Who is he trying to protect? In whose interests was he speaking—the market traders? Plainly not. We know that they want to go to the new market at Temple Mills. Now that the objection from Covent Garden has been withdrawn—that is welcome—we have heard that without the new development at Temple Mills the market trade in London is likely to suffer. Perhaps the people of London would also suffer—

Mr. Tony Banks: I hope that, during his perambulations, the hon. Gentleman will come to the problem of Newham, because if I am lucky enough to catch the Deputy Speaker's eye I shall speak about the market interests of the traders in Stratford. I hope the hon. Gentleman will bear them in mind.

Mr. Hughes: The right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney spoke for nearly an hour. I have been on my feet for only two minutes, so I make no apology for not having reached the point in which the hon. Gentleman is particularly interested, but I shall come to that.
The right hon. Gentleman's speech was not in the interests of the local people of Spitalfields who we now hear have not opposed the Bill. Was it in the interests of the people of Hackney and Waltham Forest? This is particularly interesting in terms of Labour party politics. Where are the hon. Members for Hackney? I suspect that they support the scheme and welcome the 6,000 jobs that will come to their area. We may well hear from the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen), who was in the Chamber earlier. I understand that, with a few reservations, he supports the scheme. I understand that the Labour-controlled Waltham Forest council supports the scheme. Only a few people from one part of London are against it.

Mr. Leighton: We are all listening with great suspense and interest to the hon. Gentleman's fascinating statement. He says that Hackney will get 6,000 jobs. That is a nice round figure which he has obviously researched carefully. Can he explain exactly what those 6,000 jobs will be and when they will arrive?

Mr. Hughes: It is for the hon. Gentleman to make his speech. We have been hearing—[Interruption.] Does the hon. Gentleman want an answer?

Mr. Leighton: Yes.

Mr. Hughes: We have been hearing negative remarks about the jobs coming in. I suppose that the 36,000 jobs created in the London Docklands development corporation area are also a myth. Presumably they have not arrived. Presumably no one is working in that area.

Mr. Leighton: rose—

Mr. Hughes: No, I shall not give way on that point. I want to move on to my next point.

Mr. Leighton: Does the hon. Gentleman want the information?

Mr. Hughes: Yes, I shall certainly give way.

Mr. Leighton: The hon. Gentleman has conjured out of the air 6,000 jobs for Hackney. He is now telling us that 36,000 jobs have been created in London Docklands. The LDDC commissioned a report from Peat Marwick McLintock, a prestigious group of consultants, and those consultants looked into precisely that point. In paragraph 6(1) of their report they said:
Its efforts"—
in trying to get employment—
have met with limited success. Indeed, as we noted earlier there are now over 1,000 more unemployed people in Docklands than in 1981.
Where are those 36,000 new jobs? They do not exist.

Mr. Hughes: I listened carefully to the hon. Gentleman's precise words and I urge people to compare my point with his response. Not one thing that the hon. Gentleman has said contradicts my statistics. He merely moves on to something else.
This is a vendetta against the City corporation. It is a knee-jerk—

Ms. Gordon: rose—

Mr. Hughes: I shall give way, but I should like to finish one point.

Ms. Gordon: Six years of the London Docklands development corporation have resulted in a net loss of jobs. Most of the jobs were transferred from Billingsgate and Fleet street. Some jobs were created but so many local firms were squeezed out by compulsory purchase orders that the final result was net loss of jobs. The hon. Gentleman's figures are not correct.

Mr. Hughes: The hon. Lady really must keep up. I had moved on to the next point, having dealt satisfactorily with that matter. If she would like to try to keep up with the game, we shall try to answer her points.
This is a knee-jerk reaction by the Labour party. We have seen it often against anything that it does not control: if the Labour party cannot control something, it is not worth having.
The right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney told us that he would address part of his remarks to what was going to happen on the Spitalfields site, suggesting that my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Sir G. Finsberg) had neglected to do so. I listened carefully to what he said, but we did not hear one solid reason why the Spitalfields site should not be


redeveloped. We did not hear one well-argued objection to what is proposed for that site. Nor did we hear any constructive analysis of what will happen on that site. I listened carefully to what the right hon. Gentleman said, but on those points he said nothing constructive.
The Labour party accuses Conservative Members of talking glibly about inner city regeneration Opposition Members say that we have no plans for the inner city. The answer is simply that when a scheme such as this comes along we take a positive attitude towards it. We look at such schemes and ask whether they can provide something new for the people of London. It is the Labour party which has a negative attitude.
Spitalfields has a varied and multiracial population which forms the seeds of a thriving community. I accept that there is poverty and deprivation, but with the seeds of a thriving community it deserves the opportunity that the scheme will provide. For years its people have been either patronised or ignored—I refer in particular to the Bengali community—by the Labour party. Hon. Members on both sides of the House would agree that the treatment of those people by the Liberal council has been shameful. Both parties who have controlled Tower Hamlets council have treated them shamefully. The Bill, provides many opportunities for them. It provides opportunities for London and for the local people.

Mr. Tony Banks: It says here.

Mr. Hughes: Yes, in my notes.
We heard some rather snide comments from the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney about the £2·5 million net in rents that will come into the City of London from this development each year. But he neglects to tell the House that 80 per cent. of the money that comes into the City of London corporation is redistributed to London boroughs. Boroughs such as Tower Hamlets and Hackney will be the beneficiaries of the £2·5 million per year. That money is not going just to the City of London corporation.
What we have seen displayed tonight, and I am confident we shall see it displayed a lot more, is a consistent lack of vision by the Opposition—a lack of vision which means that they always try to oppose anything done by the London Docklands development corporation. They have suggested that few or no opportunities for work have been created. Presumably they do not accept that one quarter of the houses and flats built there are now occupied by people who were previously council tenants. Presumably the self-build schemes do not involve council tenants or people who were on council waiting lists.

Mr. Spearing: The hon. Gentleman may know that half the area of the LDDC is in my constituency. The first occupants of houses built by the LDDC may have come within his category, but is he aware that it is virtually impossible for any of my constituents to buy a new house in that area because they have gone up so much in value? People have been made homeless and cannot stay there. Children of families who have lived in the area for generations are being priced out by the very mechanism that he is advocating.

Mr. Hughes: It is rich for Labour Members to talk about the lack of opportunity for people in the inner cities. Probably the majority of real east enders do not live in the

east end any more because of the lack of opportunities provided by the Labour party when it was in government. There were no houses to buy, so they moved out to the new towns and to places such as Upminster.
When I was involved with Stepney and Poplar as my party's candidate, 16 new maisonettes were put on the market by the GLC and 3,000 people queued to buy them. People who, according to the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney, did not want to buy their own homes voted with their feet and got out. The opportunities were never available then, and they may not be now, but certainly the Labour party is in no position to complain that they were not available.
That brings me to a point that I wanted to make about the LDDC. In 1979 I was my party's candidate against the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney. At the beginning of the election campaign on the Isle of Dogs—which was then in the right hon. Gentleman's constituency—I spoke to the George Green residents and tenants association. I made a promise that made the members of that association fall about laughing. They thought that I was lying. They said that I was making election bribes which could never be carried out.
I said that within 10 years there would be a new train line to their area. I am sure that no hon. Member would deny that there is now a magnificent mass transit system to the Isle of Dogs. I submit to the right hon. Gentleman, who said that the LDDC had brought nothing to his area, that that might have been a substantial gain to residents who had previously felt trapped on the Isle of Dogs.
This is another example of a major scheme that will bring great benefits to the people of the area. The Labour party again says, "Wait—wait for a strategic plan." There was always a new false dawn with the LDDC, the derelict areas of dockland and the Isle of Dogs, but never a proper scheme with any chance of succeeding. This is a scheme which will succeed; a scheme which will bring benefits to the people of Spitalfields. I believe that it will be widely welcomed by them, by the trade and by the people of London, and that it will bring great benefits to all but the narrow interests of the Labour party.

Ms. Mildred Gordon: The hon. Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Hughes) keeps referring to negative attitudes. The real negative attitude is the naked greed of pinstriped men who lust for profits, arid once again propose to blight the east end of London.
Mine is the neighbouring constituency to that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore). I was born in his constituency, arid I have a special interest in Spitalfields. My father was a councillor for Spitalfields, East; many of my school friends lived in Spitalfields, and I would go there to visit them arid play. My sister went to Central Foundation school, which was in Spital square. I therefore know the area well, and have always considered it very special.
Even when very young, we knew of the Huguenots who had sought refuge there. We saw their buildings, with the large windows to let in light for silk weaving, and the mulberry trees in the yards where the silkworms grew. Spitalfields market was also a large part of our lives. The market received its charter in the 17th century. It is very successful, with trade totalling over £180 million in 1987, and it is fully occupied. In 1984–85, 42 of the traders had


a turnover of over £1 million each, and 78 per cent. reported that their trade was improving. It is not a dying market, but a flourishing market.
There are many new dealers in ethnic food, such as vegetables imported from Kenya, and that side of trading is thriving and growing. The market supplies Bengali shops, for instance. No account has been taken of the fact that trade has arisen because of the needs of the local community. It supplies the majority of the vegetables that form a large part of their diet, food that is not readily available elsewhere.

Mr. Michael Jack: Does the hon. Lady agree that the existing Spitalfields market does not contain the necessary facilities—cold storage or ethylene ripening facilities, for example—to accommodate the further development of the trade to which she has referred?

Ms. Gordon: I do not have the details, but I see no reason why the existing market cannot be improved. There are problems. Improvement is needed in cleaning and the removal of waste, and in the access roads. But there is no reason why the local authority cannot deal with improved cleaning facilities, for instance.
The traders have been faced with a fait accompli. The initiative has come wholly from big business. The proposal that the market should be relocated at Temple Mills, and that the site should be redeveloped, is prompted by the value of the site. The Bill has nothing to do with the condition of the market and whether it can be improved. Behind the proposal is the value of the site to the City of London corporation, and the hundreds of millions of pounds that will be made out of it by the developers.

Mr. Hugo Summerson: Will the hon. Lady contrast the "lust for profit of the pinstriped men in the City" with the doubtless large profits that the market traders of Spitalfields are making?

Ms. Gordon: The profit that the traders in Spitalfields market are making is a mere fleabite compared with those of big business. They are not damaging the lives of local people, as the proposed developments will harm the community.
There is no knowing how the move to Temple Mills will affect the Spitalfields traders. There is no knowing how it will affect the fruit and vegetable dealers in the many smaller retail markets in the east end—and there are many such markets dotted all over the east end. People travel from miles around, not just from the east end, to get cheap fruit and vegetables. The development will be detrimental to those in the east end, Hackney and the surrounding areas. We also do not know how the move will affect traders in Stratford, but no doubt my hon. Friends who represent the other areas that will be affected by the move will deal with that.
One of the reasons given for pulling down the market is the problem of traffic. If the proposed developments are built, traffic problems in the small medieval streets around Spitalfields will be immense. That is a false argument. Spitalfields is a unique and historic area, with a high degree of social and communal cohesion. There has always been racial tolerance. It must be the only area where a building can be found that was a place of worship for the Huguenots, became a place of worship for Jewish refugees

and is now a mosque. It is also an area of industry and enterprise. The majority of residents live within 10 minutes of their place of work, but that will be changed if the new development is allowed to go ahead.
I have unfortunately seen the results of the beginning of a development in my constituency, where the land is being regenerated and the community is being destroyed. That will be the pattern in Spitalfields if we allow the market to be pulled down and redevelopment to go ahead.
The local community live, work, go to school, shop and have their cultural and religious needs met within the small area of Spitalfields. The area will be changed out of all recognition by the new proposals. The proposed relocation of the market development will pose a serious threat to the continued existence of the present community.
The developers claim to be concerned about Spitalfields' heritage and its historic character. This is not just a matter of individual buildings, some of which are beautiful and date from the 18th century; it is a matter of the unique mixture of work, home, market and trades. The area's inheritance is under threat.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney has already mentioned the high unemployment rate of over 24 per cent. within Spitalfields. The Home Affairs Select Committee report on Bengalis in Britain said that this figure is likely to conceal a higher rate. As my right hon. Friend has said, the jobs that exist centre around the clothing and leather industry, and work in the market, in the shops and the cafès around it. Jobs will not he created by the new development; they will be squeezed out.
I have received case after case concerning small firms on the Isle of Dogs that employ local labour in the type of jobs for which the local people have been trained being squeezed out. Only today I received a letter from Limehouse Studios. In 1985 that company signed a new lease with the LDDC for 200 years. Now it has been informed by the LDDC that it is to be compulsorily purchased. That is a typical example of what has happened in that area and that is what will happen to artisan workshops and small businesses in Spitalfields if the Bill goes ahead.

Mr. Spearing: That example of the juggernaut of the LDDC must be compared with the fact that the Canary Wharf development was not called in for consideration. The Prime Minister was in the area yesterday. Was my hon. Friend able to tell her about Limehouse Studios? Was she able to point out that the sort of things that are happening in Spitalfields, Canary Wharf and on the Isle of Dogs are not welcome?

Ms. Gordon: I knew about the Prime Minister's visit to Canary Wharf and the earlier visit by Lord Young only from the newspapers. I was neither invited nor informed. Indeed, the mayor and the leader of the council were not informed. I believe that they walked out of a banquet in Whitehall to which they had been invited when they found out what had happened at Canary Wharf. We can expect more such behaviour in the future.

Mr. Tony Banks: My hon. Friend has just revealed that the Prime Minister acted most discourteously by not informing the constituency Member of her visit. I assume that my hon. Friend will accept that the Prime Minister


must be rather careful. She is so unpopular that she is a positive incitement to violence on the streets. Therefore, she must keep her visits quiet until they have taken place.

Ms. Gordon: I take my hon. Friend's point. I must also inform my hon. Friends that Lord Young's visit was not disclosed—

Mr. Banks: He is even more unpopular!

Ms. Gordon: We must also take into account that the Canary Wharf development is unpopular with the community and that everything to do with it is shrouded in secrecy. The local people are not told what is happening in case they express their opinions in the usual east end manner.
The shops that will be built in the new development will not be those that are needed. The regulations have already been changed and the class of use has been changed to enable banks, building societies, travel agents and estate agents to be included. Sadly a beautiful old place that used to make scales—I believe that was in Paxton street—has gone out of business. It has been replaced by a new faceless computer office.
Workshops will be undermined by the rapid rise in land values that will ensue. The one thing that the people of Spitalfields and of the east end do not need is more office space. My right hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney has already said that 27 million sq ft of office space is in the pipeline for London. Within 30 yards of the boundary of Spitalfields we can see the towering mass of the Broadgate development, which is currently under construction. That will provide about 4 million sq ft of office space. Canary Wharf will give us a further 6 million sq ft. I do not know who will occupy all those offices. Perhaps they will stay empty as their values rise, as we saw with the Centre Point development in London.
The area needs developing. There is need, not for offices, but for economically priced rented accommodation, for improved workshops and for environmental improvements that will benefit the community. There has been talk about the Liberal council negotiating a community gain. The community gain that it negotiated with the billionaire company Olympia and York on Canary Wharf was pathetic—£50,000 a year for training. The community gain for training that is attached to the Spitalfields package, should it be put into effect—I hope that it never will be—will be £250,000 over five years. It has already been pointed out that that will be less than the cost of a small house. What type of training will be provided for that? It is derisory and despicable.
Part of the community gain is the contemptible proposal for only 118 residential units on this 12 to 14 acre site. Such provision is derisory when one considers local need. Indeed, most of those units will be one or two-bedroomed units. The families in that area are large and they need four or five-bedroomed houses. The residential units will not be for them. The corporation has also told Tower Hamlets council that it wishes to have nomination rights for some of the housing. How much will that benefit local people? Not more than would go in the corner of a tooth.
The area will be turned into a ghost town. There will be a park provided and no doubt it will be full of office workers at lunch time, but it will be empty after dark and people will be afraid to go into it.
If the Bill is agreed, the sky will be the limit for land values. In Wapping, less than half a mile from Spitalfields, the price is currently £20 million an acre. That is almost unbelievable. The professional gentrifiers have already moved into Spitalfields with the yuppies in their wake.
A few weeks ago, when I was doing a television programme, one of the executives introduced himself to me and said that he lived in the neighbourhood next to my constituency. He told me that he had bought a house in Woodseer street. I expressed surprise and he told me that he had bought his house three years ago and that he had paid £52,000 for it. He said, "Islington is finished." I think that sums it up: Spitalfields is the next place for the takeover.
What will happen to the local people after the takeover? They will be priced out of the area. A very vulnerable local community will be forced out. It is worth noting that the £52,000 house is now worth nearly £200,000. My right hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney read out some house prices, and they are soaring. If the Bill goes ahead, the same things will happen to the people of Spitalfields as have happened to the people on the Isle of Dogs. All this is even before the development begins. Flats on rundown housing estates are selling for £60,000 when the average wage of local people in the area is £100 or less. What chance do they have in this melee?

Mr. Spearing: Is not the silence of the Prime Minister and her activities possibly related to her inner city policy? Is not what my hon. Friend is describing the real inner city policy of the Prime Minister, which is colonisation by the people she likes whom she described on election night as "our sort of people"? Is that not the hidden agenda of her inner city policy for London?

Ms. Gordon: I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. The right hon Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) was reported in The Daily Telegraph—or perhaps it was in an article that he wrote for The Daily Telegraph—as suggesting that we need more charitable donations to solve the problems of the inner cities. He said that we must honour the men who built the workhouses. Is that supposed to be the future for the unfortunate people of east London? Do we want to bring the workhouse syndrome back to the area? The Government honour the people who built the workhouses, not those who achieved the biggest slum clearance in Europe. A Labour council built 84,000 housing units, but the Government honour those who built the workhouses.
Most of the community gains do not meet the needs of the people in Spitalfields and the adjoining areas. We need a strategy that begins to address the problem of inner city deprivation and regeneration, with social and economic responsibility. The social effect of regeneration in the American cities, the model on which this type of development is based, has been to increase poverty, to displace the local population and to create more deprivation and despair among the ethnic groups, but it has created no jobs and very little housing or other benefits for working people or for ethnic minorities.
For those reasons, the House should be examining alternative developments which will reflect the interests and needs of the people of Spitalfields and not those of the business men in the City of London. For those reasons, I support the instruction.

The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. John Selwyn Gummer): I thank the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore) for the generous way in which he suggested that I was an unsuitable Minister to intervene in the debate. I shall explain to him why I intervene to explain the Government's view on the Bill, and perhaps comment on one or two of the things that have been said, in a way that I hope he will find helpful.
In the traditional way, the Government are taking a neutral stance on the Bill, for it is a private Bill. If the House decides to give it a Second Reading, no doubt it will proceed in the normal way to question, to argue, and to seek to provide from it the kind of Bill that hon. Members want.
The Bill has obvious implications for horticultural marketing in London. Therefore, it is a Bill which should most properly be considered by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, not least because marketing is of increasing importance in agriculture. We have moved from a period when production was king to a period in which effective selling has become increasingly important. The market in the big centre has great importance in that. Therefore, I believe that it would be wrong to suggest that the Bill can be discussed only from the point of view of planning in the way which some hon. Members have sought to do so far. As I understand it, the Bill is concerned with the better marketing of horticultural produce and addresses itself to those problems.
There have been concerns, particularly from the Covent Garden market, that the changes might in some way affect the situation there, but I am happy to hear that those problems have been overcome and that the objection by that market to the Bill has been withdrawn. I am sure that the House also will be aware of the withdrawal of the objections from the Transport and General Workers Union. Again, it is natural that I am concerned with that, as the Transport and General Workers Union represents a majority of agricultural and other workers who are unionised. That, too, is of considerable importance to the House.
I am a little concerned about the question raised by the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney about calling in the planning proposals. I should have thought that, if he felt so strongly and, indeed, if the hon. Member for Bow and Poplar (Ms. Gordon) had also felt that strongly, they might at the appropriate time have asked the Secretary of State to call in the proposal.
I have some experience of that procedure because I have recently had to do precisely that in my constituency. I found out the date by which such a request had to be made and I sought to get the Secretary of State to call in a particularly objectionable proposal. I am happy to say that I succeeded. However, I had to get in my objection in time. The right hon. Gentleman did not do so. He felt strongly about it, but he put forward no objection. As the House has been asked to deal with the scheme on a planning basis, it is reasonable to say that if an objection has not been brought by the local Member of Parliament, perhaps it is reasonable for the Secretary of State to believe that he should not call it in.

Mr. Tony Banks: The Minister might be interested to know that the London borough of Newham did precisely

that. It asked the Department of the Environment to call in the whole development and the move of the market to Temple Mills. It was refused completely by the Department.

Mr. Gummer: I am sure that what the hon. Gentleman said is true. I was remarking that it did not seem to be quite such a matter of urgency and concern to the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney or indeed to his neighbouring Members of Parliament if they did not feel it necessary to do that, particularly considering their view of the quality of Tower Hamlets council. I am in some difficulty here for I do not wish to intrude upon private grief. I do not have, from my memory of the days when Tower Hamlets was run by the Labour party, a brief for Tower Hamlets council in general. It seems to me that much of the deprivation in Tower Hamlets is the result of one of the worst planning systems and sets of attitudes over 40 years that can be imagined.
I remember that when I was a member of the Inner London education authority it was impossible to get teachers because Tower Hamlets borough council did not believe in building houses for sale. It wanted to municipalise the area, and it has done so, with the result that the mix of population has been destroyed and there is very little chance of it returning. The history of Tower Hamlets borough council is not so great as some would have us believe. The present borough council has procedures that some may find unusual, but it has been elected and has reached a decision.
I find it difficult to believe that the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney would have been so enthusiastic about his condemnation of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State had a Labour council reached that decision. If a Labour council had made such a planning decision, I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman would have been quite so concerned about the impropriety of not calling in the application. I suspect that he is more concerned about internal political arguments after the surprising—to the Opposition—change in Tower Hamlets.

Mr. Spearing: Just to reinforce what my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) said about Newham, does the right hon. Gentleman not realise that both my hon. Friend and I asked for the Canary Wharf application to be called in? The Secretary of State did not call in that application, either. Does it not suggest that there is a lack of sensitivity in the Department of the Environment and among Ministers about controversial matters that affect London boroughs?

Mr. Gummer: It has been suggested that there have been differences of opinion between Ministers in the Department of the Environment and those in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. I am happy to say that on this point, as on all points, I am entirely of the opinion that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is right.
I listened to the speeches of the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney and the hon. Member for Bow and Poplar. Then I listened to the interventions of the hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) and was struck by the fact that it was all a matter of saying no, which was very sad. Then I asked myself why the London Docklands development corporation was set up. It was set up because nobody was doing anything. There was no chance of getting any policy through. Every plan to use the


area in a way that any sensible city would use it was destroyed by inter-borough rivalry and Socialist dogma. My right hon. Friend was right to set up the LDDC to ensure that something is done that will be very much the envy of the rest of Europe and the world.

Sir Geoffrey Finsberg: Does my right hon. Friend also agree that it was the inactivity of the London county council, the Greater London council and the London Labour boroughs that caused 20 or 30 years of dereliction and that it was my right hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) who, together with Bob Mellish, got the London Docklands development corporation working? I do not know of a better Londoner than Bob Mellish.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): Order. We seem to be straying from the confines of the Bill.

Mr. Gummer: I am sorry that we should have done so, but I think that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, will agree that a parallel was drawn between the development of this important site and the development of another important site nearby. I shall not be led further down that road, apart from saying that the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney said how sad it was that the GLC had disappeared and how useful it would have been in these circumstances. It is the first time since the abolition of the GLC that I have heard anybody remember that we ever had a Greater London council.

Mr. Tony Banks: Silly little man.

Mr. Gummer: The hon. Gentleman who has just shouted out is a—

Ms. Gordon: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Gummer: I am happy to give way to the hon. Lady.

Ms. Gordon: I see people in my surgery weekly and receive letters almost daily from people who want housing transfers but who have to be told that because the GLC no longer exists there is absolutely no chance of their getting a transfer.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We must return to discussing the Bill. Time is very short.

Mr. Gummer: The transfer of this market to another site is a matter of concern to the planning authorities. Both the planning authorities involved have given planning permission. Waltham Forest gave planning permission in October 1986. Planning permission was given by Tower Hamlets last year. It is for a mixed development on the Spitalfields market site, comprising mainly offices, with 238 residential units, retail use for small businesses, a museum and open spaces and restaurants, subject to a number of conditions.
I hope that the House will decide whether the future site will be better than the existing one. I do not think that we can follow the line of the hon. Member for Bow and Poplar, that we do not know whether this will work. That is one of the problems of any change. We must decide whether it is worth giving the proposal a chance. We ought not to he led astray by visions of naked and pinstriped people lusting for whatever it may be; how they are both I am not sure. I had better not go down that avenue, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
It would perhaps be better to consider the Bill in a cairn atmosphere and to put aside local party political differences, and the sad vendetta against those who make money, most of which goes to the benefit of other boroughs in London. It is those on whom our welfare services depend. It is only the wealth creation of the people of Britain that enables us to provide any of the housing for the hon. Lady's constituents. or any of the health and welfare services that we provide. Sometimes I think that those who are so generous in their attack on those who make money should remember that most other countries would he very pleased to have a financial centre of the strength and value of the City of London. Very few people shout about that in this country, but foreigners would like to have the strength and money that comes from the City.
The hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) only shouts from a sedentary position. He has not been in the debate. The House has got used to listening to the hon. Gentleman; either he lectures us for far too long or he shouts from a sedentary position.
The Bill ought to be considered on its merits rather than against any dogmatic background. There were a number of petitioners against the Bill. Some have withdrawn their objections. We ought to ask ourselves whether it would be reasonable to allow the Bill to go to a Committee, where the petitioners would be able to put their cases. The Committee would be in a much better position than we are to examine the issues involved and to ensure that the interests of the petitioners are safeguarded. It would have the added advantage of expert advice.
The detailed arguments about the Bill must be worked out, as is customary, by the private interests involved. I hope very much that the House will feel it reasonable to give the Bill a Second Reading and to allow it to proceed in the usual way to a Committee for detailed consideration of the issues involved.
I would be sad if, given the horticultural needs and the use of markets in a modern world, when all kinds of new equipment, proper refrigeration, properly cleaned areas and hygiene have become more important, the consideration of the Bill should cease to be about that and instead become embroiled and enmeshed in a series of arguments that sound like arguments we have heard for 40 to 50 years. In a sense, those arguments remind us that much of the dereliction in London and the deprivation of London's people has been the result of out-of-date Socialist and Marxist councils.

Mr. Ron Davies: I am intensely disappointed with the Minister's response. His last comments do him and his office no good at all.
There is no doubt that the central issue this evening is not the relocation of Spitalfields market but the nature of the communities that will be affected by the development and the changes that will be inflicted on those communities if the proposed market relocation goes ahead. There is no doubt where the Government stand on that issue. Clearly, they will support it, despite the fact that at no time during the debate have more than 10 Conservative Members been present. I have no doubt that, if hon. Members vote on it, Conservative supporters of the Bill will appear out of the woodwork, bars, dining rooms and whatever. The


Government will have enough supporters to get the measure through the House—at least on a strong unofficial lobby. That will bring the House into disrepute.
I am sorry that the Minister has not replied to any of the real issues that have been raised. I understand that he is not in a position to do so. The issues relate to inner city development, economic policy, investment and the strength and viability of inner city communities. They also affect the strength of ethnic groupings. My hon. Friends who represent inner city areas are concerned with such issues. Of course, the portfolio of the Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food does not allow him to reply to such issues. Perhaps he will explain why that is so.

Mr. Gummer: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will explain why, if they are the issues, the Labour party has put forward its agriculture spokesman to answer the debate.

Mr. Davies: The Minister knows as well as I do that I stand here precisely because he stands there. It was the Government's choice to put forward an agriculture Minister to reply to the debate. I am the shadow agriculture spokesman. I wish that it were the other way round, and I were the Minister. I assure the House that, if I could choose who should reply to the debate, it would not be the Minister; it would be one of the new Ministers who were trailed after the 1987 election, when the Prime Minister said, "We must now go for the inner cities." Glib promises were made by Ministers with inner city responsibilities. I would call one of them to the Dispatch Box to answer the debate.
The Minister had an opportunity to make his own speech. He neglected to do so. He missed his opportunity. I have given way to him, and I shall do so again, but he must make up his mind. I have my own speech, and I intend to make it. I shall accept interventions from the Minister when I directly refer to him, but he must recognise that he has missed his chance.

Mr. Gummer: It is up to the Opposition to decide who to put forward to speak. The only reason the hon. Gentleman makes his speech in such a way is that the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore), having failed to ask for a certain planning operation to be called in, is trying to make up for his constituents—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I hope that we can now leave substance and shadow and get on to the Bill.

Mr. Davies: I am sure that the House recognises that there are well-established precedents. There are procedures to be followed. Hon. Members know why the Minister is here this evening.
The hon. Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Sir G. Finsberg) should be congratulated. There is no doubt that there is a case to be made. There is no doubt also that he presented that case as well as it could be presented. Of course, on one or two occasions, he lapsed and attempted to vent some political spleen, but my hon. Friends were tolerant and did not respond. My congratulations are sincere. There is a case to be made, and he made it.
Of course, there is an alternative case. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore) who, in his analytical approach, dissected and dispatched the case. He was well supported by my hon.
Friend the Member for Bow and Poplar (Ms. Gordon). They widened the debate. The debate is much wider than the relocation of Spitalfields market.
I suspect that the Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has replied to the debate this evening because the Government do not wish the debate to be widened. They want to restrict it, and to be seen to be restricting it, to issues relating to Spitalfields market. But the issues are much wider than that, and it is when they are challenged on the consequences of the move from Spitalfields that they are most vulnerable.
I am sure that most of my hon. Friends view with very grave concern the developing practice of using private Bill procedures, wherever possible, not only to circumvent proper planning procedures, when necessary, but also, as we see this evening, to avoid a proper, searching public examination of the issues involved.
I went to the Library yesterday for a list of private Bills introduced during this Session. The list is too long to read out this evening. That is a measure of the extent to which the House of Commons is being used by individuals for private interests. Legislation is being presented to the House of Commons to circumvent the normal planning process and to ensure that the planning issues, or the issues of economic or community development, are not explored in a rational forum and assessed by independent planning inspectors, but are made subjects of political debate in the House. The sad consequence is that unless the Bills pass through unopposed they become the subject of political controversy that will be resolved only by the Government's wheeling out their payroll vote. All the contentious issues that we have debated in the House in recent years have been resolved only when the Government have decided to use the payroll vote to expedite the matter.

Sir Geoffrey Finsberg: I should not like the hon. Gentleman to be under any misapprehension. This Bill has nothing to do with the planning process. That has been dealt with by the local authorities already.

Mr. Davies: I am fully aware of those issues and I fully understand that, even if there were a consensus, a Bill would have to be presented to the House to allow the move. My case is that no real attempt has been made to reach that consensus or to satisfy the very real needs of those communities, which are crying out in the torture that they are experiencing in the grotesque juxtaposition in which they find themselves—levels of poverty, which most hon. Members do not believe exist, side by side with the gross affluence that we have come to associate with the City of London. Those are the issues that should have been resolved before the Bill was presented to the House. I am sure that the matter would then have been dealt with in a very different way.
We must recognise that, however desirable that might be, it is not the case. We have to look at the controversies. We have to look at the events in this Chamber last night when we discovered that the chairman of Associated British Ports had been to visit the Prime Minister to ensure that the Associated British Ports (No. 2) Bill, on behalf of a privatised company, no doubt with funds flowing into Tory coffers, had her personal assistance in delivering the payroll vote.
We well remember the events of the Felixstowe Dock and Railway Bill, with P and 0 pouring money into the Tory party and laying on champagne receptions to get the Tories here for the vote.
In my own part of the country, we have the Cardiff bay development. I shall not stray too far, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but it is relevant to this debate, because we have that intermingling of public and private funds, we have the Tory party and Government Ministers involved and, in the case of the Cardiff hay development corporation, a high Welsh Tory—there are not many of them, so all of them have to be high—appointed to public office by his brother-in-law, the Secretary of State for Wales. That is the intermingling of interests that concerns us all—the intermingling of Government and private funds, the private Bill procedure, and the Government machine getting those matters through the House of Commons.
We know where the party lines are on the Spitalfields issue. Unfortunately, there are party lines because the promoters of the Bill have not sought a consensus. We know that Tory Members will come to vote, not because they are concerned about Spitalfields market but because they know where their duty lies—supporting their friends in the City of London. They will do their duty this evening. We are all concerned because the Government cannot decide where the boundary lies between the national interest, the Government interest and the interest of the Conservative party. They seem to think that all three interests are indivisible.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney referred to the glossy leaflet issued by the Conservative Back Bench horticultural committee as justification for the measure. So we have a group of Conservative Back Benchers offering justification for this private Bill.
My right hon. Friend also raised the question of the O'Cathain report by a Right-wing economist, almost a quango groupy, employed in 1981 by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to produce a report. The report was never published. Somehow it has leaked out from the Ministry and is used by the corporation as a justification for the measure. That is a cause of great concern. Questions of propriety are involved. Shabbiness has come into the House on these matters. The result is that the whole procedure on private Bills is in disrepute. A Select Committee is considering the matter and I hope that shortly we will have an opportunity to debate its report and to redress some of the wrongs.
The Minister was surprised that I was here to reply to the debate. I gave him the reason. I am not familiar with the Spitalfields area. It is not an area to which I go every day, but, when I knew that I was to reply to the debate, I made arrangements to go to Spitalfields, and I have spent a considerable time there during the last two days. I should he grateful if the Minister could tell us whether his ministerial engagements allowed him time to go to Spitalfields. He is the Minister responsible for the Bill and he should tell us how much time he has spent in Spitalfields over the last two days.

Mr. Gummer: I am happy to say that Spitalfields is a place not only to which I go, but which I go through regularly—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks), who spends most of the time shouting from a sedentary position, should note that I made a distinction between those two activities. I

agree with the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies) that it would be difficult to reply to the debate without having done so.

Mr. Davies: The Minister singularly refused to say whether, when he knew that he would be replying to the debate, he took the opportunity of going to Spitalfields to examine the position, to talk to the residents and to make his own assessment of the impact of the Bill on the people. He made no mention at all in his speech of the consequences of the move on the people of Spitalfields.

Mr. Tony Banks: rose—

Mr. Davies: I will give way to my hon. Friend, but I know that my hon. Friends who represent the three Newham constituencies are anxious to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I want to conclude my remarks quickly so that I may listen to their speeches. However, I shall give way because my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) is very anxious about the matter.

Mr. Tony Banks: I certainly am very anxious, because we still have not heard anything about Stratford market. The Minister for fruit and veg has been at the Dispatch Box but he did not say a word about Stratford market. Perhaps my hon. Friend would like to say a few words about it.

Mr. Davies: As part of my preparation for the debate, I took it upon myself to contact my hon. Friend and he spent many hours briefing me. [Laughter.] It is a strange irony that it is a matter for mirth that an Opposition spokesman should seek to acquaint himself with the problems of individuals who are faced with such legislation. It is a pity that the Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, who can so something about it, did not consult my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West. If he had, he might have been wiser and had something to say at the Dispatch Box this evening.
I took it upon myself to consult my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West. I know that he is worried about the impact on his market. If he catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, he will put his case. I know also that if he does not catch your eye, he will ensure that the interests of his market traders are brought to the fore in a forceful way.
The case for the people of Spitalfields has been put already by my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney and my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West. From my visit to the area I gained the impression that this is a unique and distinctive community. It is struggling to survive, but it is capable of being viable if given a helping hand. If it is not helped, it could be destroyed.
I offer to the House three graphic but brief illustrations of my conclusions from my visit to Spitalfields. As my right hon. Friend mentioned, Herbert house is a block of residential maisonettes. It is a visible exhibition of poverty, squalor and overcrowding that I did not know existed in 1988. Representing one of the most deprived and depressed mining areas of south Wales, I was shocked to find that degree of squalor in this capital city. What made that squalor more obscene was that it was overshadowed by the Broadgate development, rising up and blocking out the skyline. It is a symbol of wealth and affluence next to an area of abject poverty. That Broadgate development


represents a world of business, employment and high finance which could not be further away from the everyday experiences of the people who live in Herbert house, whose outlook is blocked by that expensive development. That visit illustrated to me what the Bill is all about.
I was told that I had to see Aldgate Barrs. I was told that it had been offered as planning gain for an earlier planning development. My hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West suggested that the local authority may have been conned into agreeing to that development. Aldgate Barrs was held up as a vision of what could be offered to a community if it co-operated with new planning developments. The community was told at the time that there would be new shops, new leisure facilities and new community facilities and that the community would benefit. The shops are there, the keep-fit centre is there and the theatre is there, but the shops, the theatre and the keep-fit centre are of no use to the people of Spitalfields. Those facilities are outside their experience.
The Aldgate Barrs centre is busy by day, full of yuppies going about their business and leisure activities, but it is empty at night. It is closed also at weekends when the community, if it is to enjoy the benefit of planning gain, should be playing hard. But when the Aldgate Barrs centre could be enjoyed by the community, the doors are shut. That is not enriching a community; that is giving to the community a perpetual reminder of what it does not have. That is the sad aspect of that development. That constant reminder of a different lifestyle which is not available to the people of Spitalfields makes us angry.
The final indignity displayed in Aldgate Barrs is an advertising sign—[Interruption.] It might be a matter of humour to Conservative Members, but I do not find it humorous, because the advertising sign says:
Bring a touch of France to your patio.
It is advertising new patios for gardens—in Spitalfields.

Mr. Michael Jack: What is wrong with that?

Mr. Davies: I will tell the hon. Gentleman what is wrong with that. The people who are living in the area that that facility is supposed to be servicing are living in squalor.
There are 1,300 homeless families and 12,000 families on the housing waiting list. A total of 25 per cent. of the male population in Spitalfields is unemployed and the average wage of those in work is £110 a week. The hon. Member for Fylde asks what is wrong with telling them to bring a touch of France to their patio. He does not know what world he is living in.
Another example of conditions in the area can be found on the Chicksand estate. It is a multi-storey tenement of two-bedroom flats. Those flats are being sought by property speculators who are offering £75,000 a time. That is happening in a ward in a local authority area where very few people can afford to exercise the right to buy which was so grandly given to them by the Government. They are so poor that they have to stand by and see property speculators paying £75,000 for multi-storey tenement flats in an area with that level of poverty.
That shows the real issues involved in the Bill. It is not just about having nice hygienic conditions of freeze-drying for horticultural products. That is not the issue. If it was, the Minister would have said, "I am concerned with a

strategy for the markets in London." He would have said, "I am trying to develop a plan to ensure that the markets of London are best located and best run." He did not do that. He offended the House by gratuitously ignoring the real issues to which I have referred.
We are not being asked to approve the renovation of a worn-out market; we are being asked to relocate it to allow the redevelopment of the site on which it is currently located. The motivation for the Bill comes not from the residents of Spitalfields but from those whose fingers are in the development pie. The losers, if the Bill is passed this evening and completes its stages unchanged, will be the people of Spitalfields. For those reasons, we cannot support the Bill as it stands.

Mr. John Bowis: I listened with care to the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore), the representative of Spitalfields, and the hon. Member for Bow and Poplar (Ms. Gordon), the daughter of Spitalfields. If there is one thing about which there is agreement, it is that the Spitalfields site is fairly scruffy and could well do with a facelift, a move or whatever. I do not think that there is any dispute between us on that.
I have no objection to the removal of the market and the building of a new market elsewhere, as long as the result is a market system that provides fair competition for the markets in London.
My interest in the Bill and the reason why my name is one of those appended to a motion blocking the Bill is that I represent the constituency of Battersea, within which is the bulk of Covent Garden market. In fact, a small part of it is outside my area and when I go into the flower market and walk beyond an imaginary line I find myself trespassing on the patch of the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Holland). That is where the market starts to have its rates doubled.
The problem I wish to raise has been put to me by the Covent Garden market tenants association, the traders and the employees of both the market and the traders, many of whom live in my constituency. It is a problem about which concern has been properly expressed. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Sir G. Finsberg) for referring to the fact that there has been considerable work between the City of London corporation and Covent Garden and active participation by my hon. Friend the Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack) in an attempt to find solutions to the problem. As my right hon. Friend the Minister said, it is a pity that some people do not seem to have gone out of their way to look for solutions to the problems involved in the Bill.
The problem centres on the capacity of London markets. Unlike any other western capital, London has a chequered history in that a lot of markets have been formed. Every other capital city in western Europe has a single wholesale horticultural market. We have not one, but five, plus the small market, albeit largely retail, at Greenwich. We need to examine the danger of overcapacity. That is why we have not allowed the Bill to go through unopposed. We feel that market capacity should be examined carefully to ensure that the new market will not have adverse repercussions on the traders, markets or consumers of London.
The traders and employees at Covent Garden put three specific points to the corporation. First, they said that


there should be a survey to establish the impact of the new market. I do not suggest for one minute that the wholesale markets have become inefficient. I am merely saying that trading patterns have changed. Whereas people used to go to their greengrocer for virtually all their fruit and vegetables, they now go increasingly to supermarkets. The supermarkets, in turn, go to their own wholesalers and many of them import direct. When considering investment in new markets, we need to ensure that we take that on board.
It was sensible to call for a survey to establish the need. There have been two reports—the O'Cathain report of 1981 and the Wells report of 1985. The O'Cathain report recommended a planned reduction in the number of markets. The Wells report recommended that Spitalfields market should be closed and that the City corporation should join with the tenants at Stratford in building a "modest yet modern market". It is a modest yet modern market that we have sought. It was and is important to have a survey and I hope that it will be carried out during the passage of the Bill.
The second point that the Covent Garden traders made to the corporation concerned the size of the market. People have justifiably wanted to ensure that the market is large enough to accommodate the existing traders from Spitalfields and Stratford if they want to transfer but not so large as to tempt market traders from other markets. To some extent, we have achieved that in our discussions and I welcome the assurance given by my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Highgate on the space needed and the pourboire—if that is the right word—to encourage existing traders to go. I hope that he will confirm that that will not be available to traders who trade at markets elsewhere. [Interruption.] I am glad to have that confirmed.
The third problem involves rents and rent increases. There was concern that if the rents were simply based on current rents that would take no account of the more attractive and extended facilities of the new market. Such rents could be considered to be some sort of subsidy to market traders in the new markets.
None of those apprehensions reflects on Covent Garden's viability. Covent Garden has been extremely successful since it was inaugurated. It has managed to conquer its massive debt repayments; the figure is now below £2 million and falling year by year. The space available at Covent Garden is well used and the gap that has been created by the use of supermarkets has been filled by other outlets for horticultural goods—not least distribution to the catering sector.
Although 1 was one of those who wished to block the Bill, I thank the City of London corporation and the Covent Garden market authority for their dedicated work in coming together to seek solutions. Tonight we have had, if not an eleventh hour solution, at least a seventh hour solution and have come to a substantial measure of agreement. Unfortunately, the City of London corporation has not agreed to the survey, but perhaps that will come later.
We have gained the reassurance that the new Spitalfields will be of a sufficient size, and sufficient only, to satisfy the needs of the Spitalfields and Stratford traders who move there. There is agreement that the space in the new market will take full account of the greater efficiency that can be achieved by modern market facilities and of the declining role of the wholesale market. The new

Spitalfields will simply replace the old market. It will not result in overcapacity, which is a great danger for London wholesale markets.
We have been given some reassurance that the occupancy costs—rent and service charges—for tenants at the new market will be at least comparable to those of the Covent Garden market. Therefore, to a large extent, our worries about unfair enticements have been put at rest.
The City of London corporation has satisfied me and the people whom I represent at Nine Elms that its plans will not adversely affect the marketing at Covent Garden or the overall position of London markets. We can look forward, while the Bill is in Committee, to these reassurances being tightened, tidied up and brought back as a cast-iron guarantee to the market traders and employees of Covent Garden. It was right that I should have held out for the interests of my constituents. By holding out, consulting and negotiating, we have achieved for Covent Garden what other markets might have achieved had they done likewise. I have no doubt that we can formalise the agreement satisfactorily. I am happy to say that I shall not vote against the Bill.

Mr. Tony Banks: The hon. Member for Battersea (Mr. Bowis) said that he has been speaking for his constituents and the interests that he represents and that they have been satisfied. But the interests represented by my hon. Friends from Newham constituencies and I have not. Those are the interests of the London borough of Newham and the Stratford mark et traders, who are sorely affected by the proposal and who take a close interest in the proceedings of the House.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore) said, the Bill is not about mark et needs in east London. It is about the mega-millions of pounds involved in the redevelopment of Spitalfields. To use a catch word with which perhaps you are not familiar, Mr. Speaker, we are talking "loadsa" money here—but not "loadsa" money for the Stratford traders and certainly not for the people of Newham.
The Minister for food mountains, who was at the Dispatch Box a short while ago, could have addressed himself to the interests of market strategy in fruit and vegetables throughout London and east London in particular. But he chose not to. He made a few petty points about the Greater London council and sundry Labour-controlled councils in the east end of London.
I want to talk about the Stratford market traders and the position of the fruit and vegetable wholesale market in Newham. It has not suddenly appeared; it has its roots in a history going back to 1253, when Henry III granted Richard Montfitchet the right to hold a Tuesday market at West Ham and an annual fair from 19 to 22 July. The market developed gradually, but history is silent about it during the intervening centuries.
I notice that Conservative Members are being whipped in to vote in the interests of the City of London—the Chamber is suddenly quite full. Despite my legendary abilities to call people in to listen to my oratory, I know that that is not what they have come for. They would not be here on a Thursday night—they would all be getting their behinds out of this place as far as possible to look after their constituencies, as they should. But here they sit,


waiting for a vote, knowing that they must stay here because they have been told to. That makes a mockery of the private Bill procedure.

Sir William Clark: rose—

Mr. Banks: I would have given way if the hon. Gentleman had been in the Chamber earlier; he should have come to listen to the arguments.
The real history of Stratford market dates from 1879. As London spread out and Stratford became a busy commercial centre that was increasingly inadequate to supply the needs of an ever-growing population, a market was established in 1879 which we would all recognise today as Stratford market. That market is now threatened by the Bill, and this is the first time that that has been raised during the debate.
The Stratford wholesale fruit and vegetable market occupies a site of about 6·25 acres of land—and buildings—that was originally owned by the Great Eastern Railway 100 years ago. It is now the property of the British Railways Board. It has an overspill in Burford road in which a number of market traders occupy premises and trade under the auspices of Stratford market. In 1985 the British Railways Board granted a 125-year lease on those acres of land to the new Stratford market development company formed by the traders, the majority of whom are now acting as their own market authority. Access to the market is via Burford road to the north and Abbey road to the south. So there is more than one access point, and I correct the hon. Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Sir G. Finsberg) on that point.
The constituency office of Newham, North-West is at the end of Burford road so I can look out of my office window and see what is going on in the market—

Sir Geoffrey Finsberg: I specifically said that there was more than one exit at Stratford market. I saw it yesterday afternoon, and the building to which the hon. Gentleman referred.

Mr. Banks: I accept the hon. Gentleman's correction of what I said. He also said that much of the land around Stratford market was polluted by the gas board. I am assured that such a technical problem can be easily overcome with large quantities of concrete. They managed to do it at Chernobyl, so I am sure they can do it in Stratford.
The hon. Member for Hampstead and Highgate also mentioned access roads. I know that he has been in the area and had a look at it. Newham borough council has many good plans for developing the infrastructure in the area if the Spitalfields market could be transferred to Newham. About 40 acres of land in Stratford could be used to relocate Spitalfields market. Conservative Members will realise that there is a difference between the point of view of my right hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney, who is representing the interests of Stepney, and that of the hon. Members who represent Newham.
We would be delighted to have Spitalfields market in the London borough of Newham. We want that development in the London borough of Newham. We are not trying to oppose it. We want it in Stratford. But that is not the proposal. The proposal is that it will be in

Temple Mills, which will have a deleterious effect on the Stratford market. We still have not received the assurances that we want from the promoters that they will look after the interests of the Stratford market traders.
The British Railways Board has played a fairly low role in all this. Not only did it give a 125-year lease to the Stratford market traders; it then sold a site in Temple Mills to rival developers for a new market. Frankly, it has been playing both ends off against the middle. The people who will now lose out badly look like being those in the London borough of Newham and the Stratford market traders.
The Stratford market traders have done their best to develop the site and to look to the future in terms of what we want there. The draft plan that was prepared in the 1980s concluded with the statement:
It is the intention of the Stratford Market Development Company to take steady but progressive steps towards improving the basic ideals set out whilst at the same time preserving the interests of the tenants currently domiciled in the market, ensuring that upheaval is kept to a minimum. The complex is well situated in an area close to the main road routes and those envisaged in the future. With the co-operation of all concerned, it is felt that there is considerable potential for the market to develop and generate trade, providing additional employment with a greatly improved working environment.
There were plans, and those plans are still there, to try to develop the Stratford market area within a catchment area of some 3 million consumers.
As I have said, the opposition to the Bill comes from the London borough of Newham, which is extremely worried about the corporation's proposals in the Bill to close the present Spitalfields market and relocate it at Temple Mills, only 1·3 miles from Stratford market, causing severe disturbance to the existing Stratford market.
I have mentioned to the Minister that the London borough of Newham attempted to have the proposal called in by the Department of the Environment, but that was met with a blank refusal. We oppose the development and have tried to do so, but have had no co-operation from the City of London or the Department of the Environment.
The council feels that if the Bill is passed it will cause unemployment and hardship for some of those whom the council and my hon. Friends the Members for Newham, North-East (Mr. Leighton) and for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) represent. The Bill will prevent the development of an expanded market at Stratford on a wider area of some 36 acres, of which the present market forms a part. That is larger than the Temple Mills acreage that is proposed for the new Spitalfields market.
The council contends that the corporation's proposals take no account of the existing market provisions on the eastern side of London. The provision of wholesale fruit and vegetable markets in east London is a complex matter and should be seen in the historical context of its various aspects. The Department of the Environment commenced a study in 1981. The Minister of State was not there at the time, but the report's recommendations have never seriously been considered by his Department, nor have they been considered by the City of London.
By the early 1970s the new Covent Garden market was established at Nine Elms, and, more recently, the western international market has been built at Heston to serve the western side of London. Conservative Members may find this vaguely amusing or vaguely boring. I make no apologies on this occasion for boring the House because I am boring the House in the interests of 300 employees at


Stratford market and 25 traders who I know are paying close attention to what is going on in the House. I do not think that they have been very impressed by what they have seen on the Conservative Benches tonight, and that is from a party that is supposed to be looking after the interests of small traders.

Mr. Jack: Why, if he is so interested in the Stratford market employees, does the hon. Gentleman seek to deny them the chance of entering a modern horticultural market that could further develop their opportunities?

Mr. Speaker: Order. I am not bored, but others among the hon. Gentleman's colleagues wish to speak. Will he bear that in mind?

Mr. Banks: I am delighted to hear that I am not boring you, Mr. Speaker. That is the last thing I would want to do. But I must respond to the hon. Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack). Why does he not consult the market traders? Why does he think that they want to go to Temple Mills? He knows that they do not want to go—or I hope that he knows. They want to stay where they are. They want the new Spitalfields market—if there is to be one—based where they are at the moment. If they are forced to move to Temple Mills because their market will not be viable if the Temple Mills market is established, it will undoubtedly mean the loss of their trading position, and of many jobs in the area.

Mr. Spearing: Does not my hon. Friend find it rather strange that Conservative Members should self-confessedly be bored by an important exposition of the interests of Stratford market traders? Is it not probable—indeed, we can assume by their presence that it is obligatory—that Conservative Members are here only because of their concern with the interests of Spitalfield market traders? Would it not be natural for them to be interested also in the market concerns of Stratford—unless, of course, there is some other reason that they have not expressed?

Mr. Banks: I understand my hon. Friend's point. I know the City of London of old. Conservative Members have undoubtedly done their work. They are probably sitting there full of City of London champagne. They have probably been guzzling vast quantities of caviare. They would not be here at 9.56 on a Thursday evening if they had not all been bribed in some way.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Members of the House are not bribed. The lion. Gentleman must withdraw his remarks.

Mr. Banks: A more honest group of people I have never contemplated, Mr. Speaker. I should have said that they had been induced in some way to come and show their fascination with market strategy and market traders in the east end of London. But I take the point, Mr. Speaker. I know that many Opposition Members want to speak.
We oppose the Bill. Effectively, it will mean the end of Stratford market. It will mean a loss of jobs and facilities, not only for the traders but for the London borough of Newham. On those grounds—and there are many more that I wish I had the opportunity to enunciate—I am against the Bill. Having said those few words, and in the hope that I have not bored the House, I shall sit down.

Mr. Hugo Summerson: I preface my remarks by saying what a shame it is that, of the two hon.
Members representing the London borough of Waltham Forest, I have just been called but the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) has not yet been called.
I welcome the contribution that the new market will make to the London borough of Waltham Forest and to the local economy. In planning terms, the Bill will achieve two extremely useful purposes. It will make full and proper use of a site that appears almost purpose-made for the job at Temple Mills, and of the site of Spitalfields, which has clearly outgrown its present functions.
For those reasons, I welcome the Bill. I shall sit down in the hope that the hon. Member for Leyton may have half a minute in which to speak.

Mr. Harry Cohen: It is wonderful to have a minute and a half to represent the views of Leyton, where the market will go. [Interruption.] At least, it is proposed for it to go there. I do not think that I can do justice to the views of all the people of Leyton—

Sir Geoffrey Finsberg: rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.

Question put, That the Question be now put:—

The House divided: Ayes 113, Noes 23.

Division No. 301]
[9.59 pm


AYES


Alexander, Richard
Harris, David


Arbuthnot, James
Hicks, Robert (Cornwall SE)


Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)
Hind, Kenneth


Atkins, Robert
Howard, Michael


Atkinson, David
Howarth, Alan (Strat'd-on-A)


Baldry, Tony
Howarth, G. (Cannock &amp; B'wd)


Banks, Robert (Harrogate)
Howells, Geraint


Beith, A. J.
Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)


Bellingham, Henry
Hughes, Simon (Southwark)


Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)
Hunt, David (Wirral W)


Boscawen, Hon Robert
Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)


Boswell, Tim
Hunter, Andrew


Bottomley, Peter
Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas


Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)
Irvine, Michael


Bowis, John
Jack, Michael


Brazier, Julian
Janman, Tim


Brown, Michael (Brigg &amp; Cl't's)
Knapman, Roger


Browne, John (Winchester)
Knowles, Michael


Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)
Lawrence, Ivan


Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)
Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark


Carrington, Matthew
Lightbown, David


Chalker, Rt Hon Mrs Lynda
Lilley, Peter


Chapman, Sydney
Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)


Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)
Lord, Michael


Cohen, Harry
McNair-Wilson, M. (Newbury)


Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)
Major, Rt Hon John


Cope, John
Mans, Keith


Couchman, James
Maples, John


Day, Stephen
Marshall, Michael (Arundel)


Dorrell, Stephen
Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)


Dover, Den
Moore, Rt Hon John


Durant, Tony
Morris, M (N'hampton S)


Emery, Sir Peter
Moynihan, Hon Colin


Fenner, Dame Peggy
Neubert, Michael


Finsberg, Sir Geoffrey
Nicholson, David (Taunton)


Forman, Nigel
Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)


Fox, Sir Marcus
Page, Richard


Garel-Jones, Tristan
Paice, James


Gill, Christopher
Rhodes James, Robert


Goodhart, Sir Philip
Ridsdale, Sir Julian


Gorst, John
Roe, Mrs Marion


Gow, Ian
Rossi, Sir Hugh


Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)
Ryder, Richard


Ground, Patrick
Shaw, David (Dover)


Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn
Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)


Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)
Squire, Robin


Hannam, John
Stanbrook, Ivor




NOES


Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)
Macdonald, Calum A.


Campbell-Savours, D. N.
Meale, Alan


Cryer, Bob
Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)


Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)
Pike, Peter L.


Davis, Terry (B'ham Hodge H'l)
Shore, Rt Hon Peter


Dixon, Don
Skinner, Dennis


Foulkes, George
Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)


Godman, Dr Norman A.
Spearing, Nigel


Gordon, Mildred
Wray, Jimmy


Haynes, Frank



Holland, Stuart
Tellers for the Noes:


Lamond, James
Mr. Tony Banks and


Leighton, Ron
Ms. Joan Walley.


Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

Steen, Anthony
Watts, John


Stradling Thomas, Sir John
Wells, Bowen


Sumberg, David
Widdecombe, Ann


Summerson, Hugo
Wilshire, David


Taylor, Ian (Esher)
Winterton, Mrs Ann


Taylor, Matthew (Truro)
Winterton, Nicholas


Thorne, Neil
Wolfson, Mark


Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)



Tracey, Richard
Tellers for the Ayes:


Tredinnick, David
Mr. Greg Knight and


Waddington, Rt Hon David
Sir Michael Shaw.


Warren, Kenneth

Question accordingly agreed to.

Question put accordingly, That the Bill be now read a Second time:—

The House divided: Ayes 109, Noes 21.

Division No. 302]
[10.10 pm


AYES


Alexander, Richard
Cohen, Harry


Arbuthnot, James
Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)


Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)
Cope, John


Atkins, Robert
Couchman, James


Atkinson, David
Day, Stephen


Baldry, Tony
Dorrell, Stephen


Banks, Robert (Harrogate)
Dover, Den


Beith, A. J.
Durant, Tony


Bellingham, Henry
Emery, Sir Peter


Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)
Fenner, Dame Peggy


Boscawen, Hon Robert
Finsberg, Sir Geoffrey


Boswell, Tim
Forman, Nigel


Bottomley, Peter
Fox, Sir Marcus


Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)
Garel-Jones, Tristan


Brown, Michael (Brigg &amp; Cl't's)
Gill, Christopher


Browne, John (Winchester)
Goodhart, Sir Philip


Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)
Gorst, John


Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)
Gow, Ian


Carrington, Matthew
Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)


Chalker, Rt Hon Mrs Lynda
Ground, Patrick


Chapman, Sydney
Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn


Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)
Harris, David




NOES


Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)
Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)


Cryer, Bob
Pike, Peter L.


Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)
Primarolo, Dawn


Dixon, Don
Shore, Rt Hon Peter


Foulkes, George
Skinner, Dennis


Godman, Dr Norman A.
Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)


Gordon, Mildred
Spearing, Nigel


Haynes, Frank
Wray, Jimmy


Lamond, James



Leighton, Ron
Tellers for the Noes:


Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)
Mr. Tony Banks and


Macdonald, Calum A.
Ms. Joan Walley.


Meale, Alan

Hicks, Robert (Cornwall SE)
Page, Richard


Hind, Kenneth
Paice, James


Howard, Michael
Rhodes James, Robert


Howarth, Alan (Strat'd-on-A)
Ridsdale, Sir Julian


Howarth, G. (Cannock &amp; B'wd)
Roe, Mrs Marion


Howells, Geraint
Rossi, Sir Hugh


Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)
Ryder, Richard


Hughes, Simon (Southwark)
Shaw, David (Dover)


Hunt, David (Wirral W)
Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)


Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)
Squire, Robin


Hunter, Andrew
Stanbrook, Ivor


Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas
Steen, Anthony


Irvine, Michael
Stradling Thomas, Sir John


Jack, Michael
Sumberg, David


Janman, Tim
Summerson, Hugo


Knapman, Roger
Taylor, Ian (Esher)


Knowles, Michael
Taylor, Matthew (Truro)


Lawrence, Ivan
Thorne, Neil


Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark
Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)


Lightbown, David
Tracey, Richard


Lilley, Peter
Tredinnick, David


Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)
Waddington, Rt Hon David


Lord, Michael
Warren, Kenneth


McNair-Wilson, M. (Newbury)
Watts, John


Major, Rt Hon John
Wells, Bowen


Mans, Keith
Widdecombe, Ann


Maples, John
Wilshire, David


Marshall, Michael (Arundel)
Winterton, Mrs Ann


Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)
Winterton, Nicholas


Moore, Rt Hon John
Wolfson, Mark


Morris, M (N'hampton S)



Moynihan, Hon Colin
Tellers for the Ayes:


Neubert, Michael
Sir Michael Shaw and


Nicholson, David (Taunton)
Mr. Greg Knight.


Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

Torture and Inhuman Treatment

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mrs. Lynda Chalker): I beg to move,
That the draft European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (Immunities and Privileges) Order 1988, which was laid before this House on 12th April, be approved.
The order provides that the members of the European committee, to be established in accordance with article I of the convention for the prevention of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, shall enjoy the appropriate privileges and immunities to enable them to exercise their functions under the convention.
Torture is one of the gravest violations of human rights. The British Government have repeatedly condemned it at the United Nations and in other international forums. It is expressly prohibited by the universal declaration of human rights, the international covenant on civil and political rights, and the European convention on human rights. Allegations that states or their agents have resorted to torture or inhuman or degrading treatment are subject to investigation under the relevant international instruments.
In a recent years, two new initiatives have been taken by the international community to make more effective measures for prevention. The first is the United Nations convention against torture, which was laid before Parliament in August 1985. The Government intend to introduce amendments to the Criminal Justice Bill which will enable the United Kingdom to ratify that convention later this year.
The second initiative is the convention that is the subject of tonight's debate. The initiative for the convention came from the Assembly of the Council of Europe. As hon. Members will know, torture is prohibited by domestic laws in all countries in western Europe. The victims of torture or inhuman or degrading treatment have legal channels—both domestic and international—open to them to complain and to seek and obtain redress. But the assembly believed that something more was needed—something that would go towards preventing such acts. It therefore proposed a non-judicial system that monitored detention, with a view to discouraging treatment that amounted to a violation of human rights. The result is the convention.
Under the convention, a committee will be established. The task of the committee will be to arrange visits to places of detention in order, in the terms of article I of the convention,
to examine the treatment of persons deprived of their liberty with a view to strengthening, if necessary, the protection of such persons from torture and from inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Parties are required to offer the members of the committee every facility in the performance of their tasks, in particular by giving them access at any time to any place where persons may be held—for instance, police stations, interrogation centres, prisons and hospitals—and the opportunity to interview detainees in private, and likewise their families, legal representatives and doctors.
Apart from periodic or routine visits in the territory of each contracting party, the committee may organise any ad hoc visits that it thinks warranted. After each visit the committee will communicate its findings and recommendations to the party concerned. That procedure is

confidential. However, where the Government concerned fail to co-operate or refuse to comply with the recommendations, the committee may decide to make a public statement. If the relevant state itself requests publication of the committee's findings and recommendations, the committee is obliged to comply.
As officials in charge of places of detention do not know when they will receive a visit, they should be encouraged to fulfil their obligations towards detainees and to refrain from questionable practices. That non-judicial arid confidential procedure is designed to assist Governments in treating detainees properly. It aims at co-operation between the committee and the state concerned and not the latter's conviction by a judicial authority.
The members of the committee are, according to the convention, to be elected by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe from a list of names drawn up by the bureau of the assembly. Members of the committee will serve in their individual capacity. The convention stipulates that they be picked on the basis of good character and experience in the human rights field. The committee may, if it wishes, appoint suitable experts to help it.
Much progress has been made in human rights in the last 20 years, but I think that everyone would say not yet enough. At the United Nations, particularly in the United Nations Commission of Human Rights, it has become harder for countries abusing the rights of their own citizens to escape the glare of international publicity and condemnation. Every year more problems are addressed and a closer examination is made of situations in which states have failed to live tip to internationally agreed standards.

Mr. John Gorst: Is it envisaged by the Government that during the visits that the committee will pay to various places there will be any change in the definitions that are currently accepted as constituting inhuman or degrading treatment? Or will the members of the committee be bound by the precedents set in judgments of the Court of Human Rights?

Mrs. Chalker: I believe that for the time being the committee would be bound by the judgments already set. But if there were a consistent pattern in what the committee was finding, I am sure that it would be both wished and sensible that there should be further examination. For the time being, however, I think that we had better let the committee get on with its work and see what is then produced. I am sure that no hon. Member would want anything that looked like a consistent pattern of seeking to evade the intention of the rules to be allowed to continue for any period. So that is certainly something that we should be looking at for the future.
In 1985 the commission appointed a special rapporteur on torture to investigate allegations of torture wherever they might arise. We have strongly supported his reappointment each year as another part of the international machinery designed to put an end to this horrific abuse. We also played an active part in preparing the United Nations convention against torture, which was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in December 1984 and which we signed in March 1985. Under that convention, which came into force last June, a committee of independent experts has been elected to examine periodic reports by states parties. Through the


periodic reports which no doubt will come from the committee we can look at the experience of the next few years as it is revealed by the investigations.
I do not wish to detain the House, so let me just say one more thing. The European convention is another step—perhaps a small but an important step—in the right direction. It has been signed by all 21 member states of the Council of Europe. Three countries have already ratified it—Turkey, Malta and Ireland. Sweden, in which my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, North (Mr. Gorst) is interested, has not yet ratified it. I understand that Sweden will go through a similar procedure to this in its Parliament before it can rectify the convention.
The convention will serve as a signal to other regions of Europe's commitment to stamp out torture. Let us hope that it will lead eventually to the elimination throughout the world of this terrible violation of human dignity. We wish to do everything to prevent torture and such violations.
I am pleased to commend the convention and the Order in Council to the House.

Mr. George Foulkes: I hope that the Minister is not too disappointed that she will not have her usual confrontation with my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson). It has fallen to me to speak for the Opposition. I do not know whether it is inhuman treatment or punishment for a Scots Member to be asked to do this late on a Thursday night. Sometimes I feel it is, as no doubt does the hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East (Mr. Campbell), the name of whose party I still have difficulty remembering.
We welcome the order, the convention and the committee—all described as a radical step in the crusade against torture in one of the commentaries on the matter. On behalf of the Opposition, I pay tribute to the work of Amnesty International and the pressure that it exerted for the setting up of the committee and the whole campaign that it has been running on torture. I also add a word of thanks to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer) who, over a long period, has played a great part, particularly when he was chairman of Amnesty International in the early 1970s.
We approve of giving diplomatic protection and immunity from arrest and prosecution to the members of the committee who are undertaking an important task. It is always easy to say that we disapprove of torture, which the right hon. Lady rightly described as a calculated attack on human dignity and one of the worst indignities that we see. It is not enough to condemn; we have to back up the words of condemnation with action. Action to eliminate torture is particularly important when we read in the Amnesty International report that about one third of all countries recorded instances of torture in the 1980s. Those are not old records—but in this decade. So we have a long way to go. United Nations and European actions are vital.
Incidentally, it would be useful if the right hon. Lady, in her final words, could confirm the report which was in the Daily Telegraph of 25 November last year about the United Nations convention. It said:
If the convention's provisions are made retrospective … it could form the basis for war crimes trials in Britain.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not stray too far from the motion.

Mr. Foulkes: I shall endeavour not to do so, Mr.
Deputy Speaker, but it would be helpful, as the right hon. Lady mentioned the United Nations convention in her remarks, if she could clarify that.
As the Minister said, we have a European responsibility to eliminate torture in the 21 member states of the Council of Europe, and we can act as an example to other regions of the world. That is something that Opposition Members fully endorse.
Even in 1988, there have been allegations of torture in four member states of the Council of Europe—here in the United Kingdom, in Spain, in Italy and, above all, there have been numerous allegations of torture taking place in Turkey. It is peculiar, and, strangely enough, disturbing, that Turkey should be the first state to ratify this convention. It does seem paradoxical and strange—[Interruption] I am sure that the Under-Secretary of State for Industry would find it strange if he paid attention to the debate. The allegations relating to Turkey are serious.
I find it disturbing because, as I understand it—perhaps the Minister will confirm this—the first seven countries to ratify set things in motion. Therefore, if the first seven countries—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I draw the attention of the House to the fact that once we start discussing torture in the individual countries, the debate will be wide open and interminable. We are discussing the granting of immunities and privileges to those who are monitoring these things.

Mr. Foulkes: I appreciate that, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but the right hon. Lady covered instances of torture in particular countries. When we are talking about the way that the monitoring takes place and the procedures and the immunities that are to be granted, what is happening in individual countries is relevant. Unless we see the order in its proper and wider context, this discussion will become technical and sterile.
The important matter that we should take into account is that the first seven countries have the responsibility of setting up the committee and its operational aspects, including its immunities and privileges.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We are not debating all those things tonight; we are debating immunities and privileges.

Mr. Foulkes: But these are the kind of things that these seven countries will have responsibility for. If those countries are the worst offenders in relation to human rights, the operation of the committee will be hampered.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Be that as it may, it is not a matter for debate before the House tonight.

Mr. Foulkes: I appreciate that, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was merely picking up some of the matters that were raised by the Minister in her speech. If it is in order for the Minister to raise those matters, presumably it is in order for other hon. Members to raise them.
We appreciate the importance of all aspects of this convention, including the immunities and privileges which have been granted to the members of the committee. It is a unique committee and, because it is unique, it is important that it is given immunities and privileges which


are not granted to many other operational committees. It will provide a sophisticated surveillance system and act, as the Minister said, as a preventative device. It will be a deterrent to human rights violations.
It is important to have some guarantee that the committee will be independent and that the members will not become the servants of the states from which they come. I hope that when the Minister considers this matter further, she will make sure at the Council of Europe that the method of appointment of committee members will ensure that they act independently. If not, the kind of privileges that we are considering and granting to them tonight will not be appropriate.
The Minister said that the members of the committee should be of good character. She did not quote the exact words of the convention on the arrangements for setting up the committee, which are that they should be of high moral character. Whatever the difference between "good" and "high moral" character, we believe that they should be of high moral character. We also believe that they should have some support and have independent access to funds—not just from Governments but from the Council of Europe—so that they can operate fully and independently.
We welcome the powers given to the committee members—which justify the granting of immunities and privileges—to interview any persons in private with unlimited access; right of access to all places of detention; and the power to produce and, if two thirds of the committee agree, to publish, reports.
However, the Minister will appreciate that we are concerned about some of the restrictions. The Minister said that no advance notice should be given. My understanding is that advance notice must be given to the states concerned, if not to the individual detention centres. Such restrictions will reduce the committee's effectiveness.
States are also given the right to postpone visits in the interests of safeguarding national defence and public safety; where serious disorder is occurring in detention centres; and especially where visits might prejudice interrogations relating to serious crime. That limitation on the committee's operations is the one about which the Opposition have the gravest doubts, because all Amnesty International's reports show that the most serious instances of torture occur during interrogation. When we ratify the convention and participate in the setting up of the committee, I hope that the Minister and our representatives will ensure that the derogations, limitations and restrictions on the committee are minimised as much as possible.
I am concerned that when we are giving immunities and privileges to the Committee to operate in a way of which we strongly approve, an exhibition of torture instruments produced in the United Kingdom should have been held in London at the Barbican centre. That was sad, and a matter which my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Eastham) raised several times in questions and on the Floor of the House. I hope that the Minister will give some assurance that we are not encouraging the maufacture and export of torture equipment from this country.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Again, I remind the hon. Gentleman that such matters have nothing to do with the instrument that is before the House. I hope that he will now address himself to the instrument that is before the House.

Mr. Foulkes: When we make the important decision to grant immunities and privileges, we are giving an important power to the recipients. Therefore, it is important to look at the matter in its wider context. However, as always, I accept your ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
We should not be complacent about human rights, because we shall be subject to investigation and report by the committee. If people complain, committee members will arrive in this country and be able to travel free from any kind of arrest, prosecution or legal procedures, with the diplomatic immunities and privileges of a head of mission. It is likely that we shall have to look carefully at our interrogation procedures in police stations, at the condition of remand prisoners and of patients in some of our mental establishments. Otherwise we shall be subject to referral to the committee.
Finally, it would be helpful if the Minister could give some idea of the timetable for the ratification of the convention and the establishment of the committee. It would also help the House if the Minister could say whether the convention extends to the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, or to Gibraltar, one of our overseas dependent territories in the European Community.
May we also have an assurance that information about the committee will be sent to prison governors, visiting committees and others who may have some responsibility for working with the committee when it comes into operation?
We welcome the Council of Europe's initiative in this matter and we welcome this instrument. We shall watch carefully the implementation of the committee's activities to ensure that actions match words. I thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for your usual kindness and tolerance towards me.

Mr. John Gorst: I wish to explore the narrow but important question whether the members of the committee will have the ability to assess the mental condition of prisoners. Apart from knowledge of human rights issues, the committee, when dealing with people who may be disoriented in some way, will need at its disposal people with psychological or psychiatric expertise.
I say that because solitary confinement over an extended time can be a form of torture. Indeed, it can be as uncivilised as more direct forms of torture. It is alleged by countries which pursue solitary confinement procedures that there is justification for such action. But where the motive is to wear a prisoner down to obtain a confession, perhaps by starving him of company, by giving or withholding visits and privileges and perhaps even by manipulating his diet, then a confession obtained or information extracted by such means—or punishment without trial—should certainly fall within the definition—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Member heard me reproach the hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes), and I hope he will bear in mind what I said.

Mr. Gorst: Yes, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but to argue for certain privileges and immunities, I must explain the qualifications I have in mind. For a prisoner who is disoriented as the result not of blows or the use of sharp


instruments but of a different sort of treatment, a certain type of qualification is required to enable that prisoner to be interviewed. Will the Minister say the extent to which other countries which hold people for unacceptably long periods in solitary confinement—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I must again draw the attention of the House to the fact that we are debating the conferring of immunities on those who would carry out this work. We are not debating the kind of work that they would or should carry out. It is simply a question whether we should approve conferring immunities on them, and I hope hon. Members will address that point.

Mr. Gorst: I am simply arguing, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that the fact that certain countries will sign this convention while others will not makes a mockery of any decision by us to approve this instrument. Sweden, for example, has not signed it. Has Switzerland signed it? We must discuss some of the matters that I am endeavouring to raise because some countries that have not signed are among the worst offenders in holding people in solitary confinement.
There are prisons in Sweden—for example, the Kronoberg remand prison—where prisoners will even—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I cannot allow the hon. Member to proceed further along these lines. I hope that he will not persist.

Mr. Gorst: Perhaps I have tried your patience a bit, Mr. Deputy Speaker, so I shall conclude.
One must not make prejudgments, but I hope that the measure will have the universal support, not only of the House but of nations throughout Europe, because it deserves to be a further step forward in the humane treatment of prisoners. We live in a hypocritical world in which some of those with the most progressive reputations employ some of the most regressive means to achieve their ends. If this measure humanises anyone anywhere, it will fully justify the endeavours of the late Jean-Jacques Gautier, who is credited with being among those who gave inspiration to it. I hope that the House will pass the motion.

Mr. Menzies Campbell: Like other hon. Members, I welcome the motion and the convention to which it relates. It is notable that the explanatory note, which is described as not being part of the order, points out that the order confers certain immunities and goes on to say:
It will enable Her Majesty's Government to become a party to the European Convention on the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, done at Strasbourg on 26th November 1987.
It is clear that the order will have a direct and important consequence and hon. Members have directed their attention to that.
How far are these immunities justified? Those who are elected to the committee will have the power to visit any place where people are deprived of their liberty, the power to interview those in custody and the right to make recommendations to improve the protection of those who are thus detained. Those are considerable powers and

responsibilities and it is not difficult to conclude that the greater the power invested in the committee, the greater the need for the committee to be possessed of immunity.
Is such immunity justified in relation to the quality of the people who are to be elected to the committee? They are to be of high moral character—that does not, of itself, necessarily justify immunity—and are to be known for their competence in human rights matters, to serve in an individual capacity, to be independent and impartial, to have the power to visit in time of peace or war and to visit all categories of those detained. If people of that quality are invested with those powers it is justifiable to argue that they are entitled to immunities on the scale that the order confers upon them.
The convention is, as the Minister said, but one further step in the attempt to eliminate torture and degrading punishment, in so far as that is within our power.
We cannot ignore the fact that those upon whom these immunities are conferred will be encouraged to exercise their responsibilities. We may look forward to the members of the committee visiting the prisons on mainland Britain, and perhaps also those in Northern Ireland. That will mean that these immunities can be used in a practical way to cause our institutions to come under considerable scrutiny. It is to be hoped that that scrutiny will not find us wanting, either in the management of the institutions or in the treatment of those who are necessarily detained in them.
The convention is a step in the unremitting battle against torture, about which some statistical information has been given to the House.
I conclude by joining other hon. Members who have asked the Government how soon they are likely to ratify the convention. If the order's purpose is to enable the Government to become a party to the convention, it is in the interests of the House to know how soon that enabling power will be exercised. Certain requirements must be met before the convention becomes applicable, and the sooner the Government ratify it, the sooner others may be encouraged to do so.
I welcome the order because I welcome the convention that it is designed to enable the Government to become a party to. That convention has a desirable purpose that hon. Members will not find it difficult to embrace.

Mr. John Browne: I welcome the order and the establishment of the committee. Torture is not only illegal but, as my right hon. Friend the Minister said, an abomination. It still goes on in sometimes subtle forms in Europe. There is, for example, the use of solitary confinement. The case of Captain Hayward in Sweden is one that comes to mind—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I thought the hon. Gentleman was listening earlier when I had occasion to remind the House that we were not discussing such matters. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not pursue them.

Mr. Browne: I was just beginning my introduction about torture—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Introductions can be just as much out of order as perorations.

Mr. Browne: I accept that, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
I welcome the order and the establishment of the committee. I particularly support the establishment of the spot-check visits. In a light vein, I ask my right hon. Friend whether the Whips' Office will be open to inspection. In more serious vein, I ask about the limitations on the committee's activities during interrogations about serious crimes. I agree with the hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes) that serious questions are raised. Those are just the times when the sort of torture that we arc trying to combat most readily occurs. We must increase the coverage of spot checks.

Mr. Menzies Campbell: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that if interrogations are the times when the greatest scrutiny is required, they may well be the times when the committee must flex its muscles and show its powers? Are not those the times when its immunities will be all the more valuable to it?

Mr. Browne: When ratifying the convention, the Government must seriously examine the possibility of increasing these powers. This limitation on them must be re-examined, too. I agree with inviolability in respect of documents and papers.
Will my right hon. Friend ensure that interviews with selected subjects on visits will be carried out free from official host Government eavesdropping, particularly in the form of tape recordings and other electronic devices? That is a violation of what the committee is all about. Will she assure the House that private interviews will be really private, even in an electronic age?
I congratulate the Government on keeping the initiative going and supporting it with an order and the establishment of a committee which I and most people, if not all, entirely support.

11 pm

Mrs. Chalker: With the leave of the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I thank hon. Members for their contributions to this short debate. I have listened with interest to some of the useful points made. There were a number of specific questions, some of which do not fall within the order, and I shall write to hon. Members to clarify those points.
I can tell the hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes) that I think that the Committee is being set up in the right way. He asked a series of questions about powers and delays that might be promoted by the state under investigation. If that is to be the case, that matter will be alighted on immediately by the Assembly of the Council of Europe. I am sure that such matters would not continue for more than a short time.
The hon. Gentleman spoke of what was to him the peculiarity that Turkey had not only signed the convention on 11 January 1988 but that its national assembly ratified the convention of 25 February and was the first Parliament of the Council of Europe's state members to do so. That is an encouraging development. It is early days, but I believe that Turkey is seeking to put behind it many of the things that we believe to have happened in the past which it now says it wishes to cease.
I am sure that many elected in the recent elections in Turkey are determined to honour the provisions of the convention on the prevention of torture and certainly the inspection on demand of police and prison facilities by the committee is welcome.
Progress is beginning to be made, but I agree that much needs to happen. I would not quarrel with the hon. Gentleman on that. But Turkey has completed procedures to ensure the effective implementation of article 3 of the convention on human rights and that progress was reported more than a year ago now in the Council of Europe when the Commission of Human Rights reported.
Turkey has also said that it accepts the rights of individual petition to the Commission of Human Rights, although it has expressed some reservations. There are many other signs of progress in Turkey. We must do all we can, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister did on her visit to Ankara, to ensure full respect for human rights in Turkey, as every Government must do in their own country.
The hon. Gentleman went on to ask me about the timetable for ratification. Three member states have already signed and ratified. We are coming before the House tonight and will go to another place, I believe next week, to ask for its agreement to the ratification of the order. That leaves three member states who have still to ratify the convention. I cannot say exactly when that will be, but I am sure that it will be within months, and then the convention will come into force. It can do so, as I think the hon. Gentleman is aware, once seven member states have ratified the convention. Then the committee will be set up.
The hon. Gentleman asked a number of questions about the export of instruments of torture. I think that it would be sensible for me to write to him about that. He also asked a specific question about dependent territories: would they be part of the process? They have the option, which I sincerely hope that they will all take up, of having the convention extended to them. The hon. Gentleman and the House will he glad to know that the Isle of Man and Jersey have already said that they will be doing so. We are waiting to hear from Guernsey, and Gibraltar is also being approached. In that sense, the convention will have an even wider scope than the hon. Gentleman may have thought.
The hon. Gentleman asked about information being given to prison governors and others that the committee had been set up. That is really a question for my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, but what the hon. Gentleman said on this occasion seemed good, sound common sense, and I hope that we shall be able to meet the intention that lay behind his remarks.
I think that I have covered all the relevant questions that the hon. Gentleman asked. I believe, however, that we should probe how the committee will work and for that reason the questions asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, North (Mr. Gorst) were also interesting. My hon. Friend will find that the mental condition of persons detained is covered in article 7 of the convention, which stipulates that the committee may appoint any expert whom it needs for particular visits. That expert will have the same immunity as committee members while working with them on a case. In that and perhaps other circumstances, I believe that my hon. Friend's anxieties are fully met.
My hon. Friend went on to speak of the use by some countries of solitary confinement. Obviously, I cannot speak for all countries, but the general intention expressed by members of the Assembly of the Council of Europe leads me to believe that if there are arrangements for


solitary confinement in any of the states that will be party to the convention they will ensure, as we do, that they do not constitute torture, or inhuman or degrading treatment.
My hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Mr. Browne) was concerned about the privacy of interviews. Article 8 of the convention lays down that interviews must be in private, and access by the committee must be without restriction and unlimited. My hon. Friend's fear that it might be fixed is already well covered by the convention, which requires that the actions of the committee shall be without limit in the sense of the pursuance of the articles. There are many ways in which hon. Members sometimes find their privacy threatened, but if they try to have nothing to hide, they will find themselves in much better order.
It would be easy to reiterate some of the points on which we all feel extremely strongly. The ratification of the United Nations convention against torture later this year is another way in which we will be marking the 40th anniversary of the universal declaration of human rights.
The hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes) asked about another case. I shall be writing to him about that, but we seek to follow the principle that I have enunciated in this and in my opening speech. We must go on ensuring that the right procedures are in place to follow up the anxieties which, rightly, are readily expressed in the House and in many other Parliaments when Governments exceed what is right, sensible and reasonable in pursuing affairs of state and the security of the state.
As I have said, the last 20 years have seen much progress in the protection of human rights. We must maintain the momentum that we have achieved; we must ensure that the protection of human rights and

fundamental freedoms is really safeguarded. The order, and the convention to which it relates, mark further progress.
I think I have said quite enough for tonight and therefore, once more, I commend the order to the House. I hope that it will be ratified as soon as possible after it has been considered in another place. The hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East (Mr. Campbell) asked about that. I repeat that we wish to give the order all speed. We wish to see it in force.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That the draft European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (Immunities and Privileges) Order 1988, which was laid before this House on 12th April, be approved.

PETITION

Murder

Mr. Anthony Coombs (Wyre Forest): I seek leave to present a petition from several thousand people of the west midlands and mid-Worcestershire who are particularly concerned about the recent killings of children in the area and the sixfold increase in murders since capital punishment was abolished.
The petition states:
The Humble Petition of Wyre Forest constituents and friends sheweth that in the United Kingdom there has recently been an unacceptable increase in the taking of life of innocent victims.
Wherefore your Petitioners pray that your Honourable House restores capital punishment for the taking of life of innocent victims.
And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray, etc.
I beg leave to present the petition.

To lie upon the Table.

Rover Group

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Lightbown.]

Mr. Dave Nellist: My hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, North-East (Mr. Hughes) had intended to be here and we had arranged with the Minister that he would also make a contribution to the debate. Unfortunately, his wife, Ina, has gone into hospital today for an operation and he cannot be with us.
This short debate is a continuation of the debate that began last Thursday on the privatisation of Rover. For the Minister's information, it is also a prelude to the further debate that we shall have on Rover after which I hope we shall have the opportunity to oppose the shabby deal in a Division.
As The Guardian put it, if you. Mr. Deputy Speaker, wanted to buy a Rover 800 it would set you back about £12,000. If you took the rest of the company as well you would get it for nothing and the Government would throw in £650 million and extinguish most of your debts.
About a year ago The Economist produced a pamphlet that cost about £90 entitled,
The United Kingdom as a tax haven.
Clearly it did not have in mind Government bribes of such a scale as the one for Rover. Frankly, the deal stinks. It is a massive theft of working people's money. It is the industrial equivalent of the Tory Westminster council's 5p cemeteries. The Financial Times, hardly a Militant newspaper, stated:
British Aerospace is making off with United Kingdom taxpayers' money on a scale which makes the Great Train Robbery look like loose change.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) said in the debate last Thursday, the role of the right hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit)—the ex-Tory party chairman—has never been satisfactorily explained. In last week's debate it is instructive to note that, according to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, British Aerospace first approached Rover and then the Government. I refuse to believe that the right hon. Member for Chingford had no part to play in those exchanges.
Thirteen years ago, Rover, then British Leyland, had to be rescued by the Labour Government because it had failed under private ownership and become virtually bankrupt after four years of Tory Government. Its book asset value on collapse, with numerous plants and hundreds of thousands of workers directly and indirectly dependent upon the success of the company, was less than the London office block Centre Point.
After those 13 years and £2,900 million of public investment, the company is now back in profit. For the Government, with so many of their Back Benchers opposed to public investment, the role of that money has been to finance the decline of a car industry that private investors would not properly support. Now that the company is just profitable, with pre-tax profits of £28 million, it will be not the taxpayer, who provided the cash, or the work force, which made sacrifices in jobs and working conditions, who will benefit, but the spivs and the speculators who will cream off the possible gains.
The problems of Leyland in private ownership stemmed essentially from the failure to invest. There are grave fears that in the years ahead, especially with the merger, the

same problems could arise again. Immediately before nationalisation—if we want to be pedantic, when the Labour Government took over 99.7 per cent. of the shares—British Leyland was still paying dividends while desperately needed investment was being neglected. I remember a study that took place in the late 1970s of the assets per worker in the British car industry and the comparisons that were drawn with Germany and Japan. The study revealed that for every British car worker there was £7,000-worth of machinery, compared with £23,000 in Germany and £32,000 in Japan. The difference between Britain and Japan could be illustrated by giving one worker a spade and another a tractor, asking both to turn over fields and then berating the worker with the spade for taking two weeks to complete the task while congratulating the other with the tractor for finishing the job in two hours.
The result of that lack of investment, which was decided by management and approved by shareholders, who were raking in dividends, was that the British market share of British-owned car companies fell between 1968 and 1987 from 40·6 per cent. to 15·5 per cent. The blame for that fall was heaped on the backs of car workers by the press, management and Tory Members. However, the car workers never controlled and never managed. They never decided where the wealth that they had created was to be invested.
We were told last week that there was no alternative to the privatisation of Rover and the gift to BAe, but there is a Socialist alternative: first, total opposition to the privatisation of Rover; secondly, nationalisation of Ford, Vauxhall, Peugeot, Jaguar and Nissan, for example, to form an integrated, publicly owned car industry capable of matching the production levels of General Motors, Ford and Nissan on a world scale, with the workers in the driving seat.
On 4 May, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said:
the board of Rover Group has always looked forward to the day when the businesses of the Rover Group could be returned to full private ownership.
A future Labour Government must ensure that the boards of public companies are staffed by those who are committed to full public ownership, management and control. That can be guaranteed only when a majority of seats on the boards are occupied by trade unionists from within the industry and the trade union movement generally. Nationalisation plus Lord Robens, Ian MacGregor and Sir Michael Edwardes has never equalled Socialism.
In the two months since the deal was first announced, and despite Tory Members' assertions last week to the contrary, doubts and fears have filled the minds of car and aerospace workers. They are apprehensive about the future, especially when it comes to continuity of employment. There has been no discussion or consultation with the trade unions, despite two letters, dated 1 March and 29 March, from Graham Day, the chairman and chief executive of Rover, each of which contained three or four paragraphs. I checked that yesterday and today with the conveners of two major plants. There have been no ballots on the proposals among the work force. Those Tory Members who spoke last week about the delight of workers at the takeover were making up those assertions.
There are no guarantees for jobs in this shabby deal. Last week the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said:


were British Aerospace to decide for some reason to relinquish … any substantial part of the undertakings of those subsidiaries"—
the Rover subsidiaries—
British Aerospace could be required to repay any net economic benefit.
When asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, East (Mr. Smith) to define "substantial", the right hon. and learned Gentleman replied:
We have not defined that aspect in any substantial or quantified terms—it will be a matter of judgement at the time.
In the next column the right hon. and learned Gentleman said:
we have not made the conditions inflexible. It is not necessarily the case that they will be insisted upon by the Government.
He added:
Circumstances might arise in which British Aerospace wished to dispose of a subsidiary company. Therefore, we leave open the possibility that the Government might waive the condition. For the moment, British Aerospace has no intention of doing any of the things I have talked about".—[Official Report, 4 May 1988; Vol. 132, c. 930–33.]
I have quoted those passages at length so that there can be no misunderstanding by workers at Rover or BAe. I could have put it more simply by merely quoting the unelected Lord Young on Channel 4's "Business Programme" on 6 March. He said:
We will not impose conditions about manufacture at Cowley or Longbridge.
Do workers look to BAe for confidence in the future? Since privatisation in 1980, BAe has axed 11,000 jobs and realised land assets in the south, notably at Weybridge and Hatfield. Since the announcement of this sale, BAe has said that one sixth of the dynamics division will go before 1990–3,000 jobs—and that a further one third of aircraft division jobs are to go before 1992. That is hardly very inspiring for midlands car workers.
BAe has to ask the Government for launch aid for aircraft each time it wishes to initiate a major project. Will BAe be capable of generating investment to keep Rover even in the second division of the European car league when, at the end of March, it had to set aside almost £400 million to cover the expected losses on civil aircraft orders as a result of the falling dollar?
Do car workers, or aircraft workers, look to Rover's management for job guarantees? Since 1977, Rover has systematically reduced its work force from 172,000 to 60,000. Thousands upon thousands of those redundancies were in Coventry. My city has suffered more, perhaps, than any other city from the collapse and decline of the car industry. The apparent strategy—I say "apparent" because Graham Day has abandoned it in the last two years—during that period was to increase the share of the market and to boost profitability by reducing wages and increasing production. From 1980 to 1987, the productivity of the British car industry increased by over 100 per cent. In 1977, each Rover worker produced 6·5 cars. Last year that figure had risen to 16. During those 10 years, four assembly plants and 13 components factories were closed, yet production is still not much more than half what it was in 1972.
In order further to control the increasingly exploited work force, Rover's management has sought to undermine the organisation of workers and their ability to defend themselves. [Interruption.] They have been ably abetted

—apparently, judging by the laughter of the Government Whip and the Minister, with some enjoyment—by the panoply of anti-trade union legislation that has been enacted by this Administration.
The onslaught against shop floor organisation has involved victimisation—for example, of the conveners Derek Robinson at Longbridge, Ian Schofield at Solihull and my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, North-East at Unipart. They were all sacked for carrying out their trade union responsibilities. [Interruption.] If the Minister wishes to intervene, he ought to investigate the facts surrounding the sacking of Derek Robinson. He will find that he was sacked because, as convener of shop stewards, he put his name to a trade union document that argued for the expansion of the car industry and the protection of jobs. I remember that clearly, because I was working for a subsidiary of British Leyland at the time. It also involved Rover in using that insidious organisation, the Economic League, to blacklist good trade unionists—a practice that has now spread to other car firms, such as Peugeot-Talbot in Coventry.
Sir Michael Edwardes, the former BL chief, was appointed by a Labour Secretary of State and knighted by the Tory Government in 1979, within days of gaining office. But he is hardly unique. Last week the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster praised Graham Day, the current boss of Rover. Mr. Day was brought in to speed up privatisation; he was brought in as an undertaker disguised as a physiotherapist. While his knighthood might now be just a formality, for my money the man is a butcher. After he had been three years in charge of British Shipbuilders, the work force fell from 65,000 to 10,000. Since May 1986—[Interruption.] Again, the Minister and the Government Whip seem to find the poverty, the misery and the unhappiness that redundancy has brought to the families of workers who lost their jobs in the north-east and other areas due to the decline of British Shipbuilders extremely funny. That may well be something, with the luxury of ministerial and Whips' salaries, from which they can be insulated. Having come down from the north to this palace of varieties called Westminster, I view it from a different perspective.
Since May 1986, with only two years at the helm of Rover, Graham Day has sold 18 businesses. With privatisation, the Tories are now ransacking the rest of the cupboard to please their friends in big business. Mr. Day does not particularly care about jobs or producing goods. He said, in another direct quotation:
We want to make money. People keep talking of market share, but the objective is to become profitable.
That is capitalism in a nutshell. It is not about making goods or safeguarding jobs; it is about making money. With Day and Smith in charge, profit will be king. The jobs of car or aerospace workers will come a very poor second.
All that would be true on the basis of the status quo; but the future of the car industry is tied up with the health or otherwise of the economy as a whole. With the onset of recession in the United States of America—and no doubt next Tuesday's trade figures from the United States will give further evidence of that—the world's largest car market will begin to contract. Companies like Jaguar and Range Rover, which export 50 to 60 per cent. of their output to the United States, will be particularly hard hit.
The rapidly falling dollar, which is both a cause and a symptom of the disease of American capitalism, is already causing them to feel the pinch.
In January this year, the West Midlands enterprise board produced a sector review on the motor vehicle and components industries. Quotations from that are illuminating.
The world and European car industries are heading for a period of global over-capacity in which competition will intensify and some plants or parts of plants will face closure for two reasons; firstly, the build-up in Japanese capacity both in the US and increasingly in Europe, and secondly, the fact that most of the major manufacturers will be retooling and introducing new models at an accelerated rate in the next few years … Japanese companies will have the capacity in North America to produce 2·3 million cars annually by the early 1990s either independently or through joint ventures … Such is the capacity build-up in the US, along with the fall in the dollar, that Japanese exports to Europe from the US in the 1990s is becoming a possibility … implications of this are that European manufacturers will face increasing difficulty in exporting to North America.
A more recent article in The Independent by the industrial editor, Jonathan Davies, says:
The Japanese motor industry is going through its worst year in recent memory. Of the seven leading manufacturers, only two, Toyota and Honda, are operating profitably—and they expect their profits to fall by at least a half in the current year. The others are faring worse. The reason is not hard to find. All the Japanese are struggling to live with the rapid appreciation of the yen over the last 18 months, which has wiped out most if not all of the profit on the 3·7 million cars which are exported … Yet nobody in the European or American car industries is rushing to gloat at the unusual spectacle of their Japanese counterparts running to the Government in Tokyo with appeals for help. For one thing, the outlook for their own performance this year is far from inspiring. Demand for cars looks certain to fall quite sharply from last year's record levels in Europe and the US, and competitive pressures from both domestic and foreign manufacturers will pare margins to the bone … the Japanese have been stepping up their investment in overseas car production. Nissan's decision to build its green field assembly plant in north east England is just one example of a trend towards overseas production which began in the US and has been replicated in most European countries.
The logic of that is that in the next two or three years, managements will continue, and most likely intensify, their attacks on workers and their organisations.
The recent speed-up of track speeds and the increased exploitation of car workers have led to two things. On the one hand they have led to increasing stress and strain, which I mentioned last week in an intervention. For example, 17 shop floor workers in a six-week period towards the end of last year at Jaguar in Coventry died either from stress-related diseases or from strokes. When I put that to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. King), he said:
The facts speak for themselves. If they are to survive, the productivity and performance of companies must be of a high standard. The output of Jaguar is still nowhere near the level of some of the European factories, which seem to manage perfectly well. I cannot comment on the physical standards of shop stewards and employees."—[Official Report, 4 May 1988; Vol. 132, c. 949.].
That speaks volumes for the synthetic concern that we hear in this Chamber from Tories about health and safety in the industry.
The second point that has come from the increased exploitation of workers has been the return of militancy to the car industry. I refer to Ford, Land Rover, Vauxhall and Jaguar. Again, virtually the whole car industry has been involved in strikes and overtime bans, or has come

close to them, as pressures of exploitation increase and workers take the opportunity—soon to disappear—of relatively full company order books.
In last week's debate, Tory Members hypocritically attacked the Transport and General Workers Union at Ford in Dundee for an alleged loss of jobs, yet, in the past seven years, the millionaire directors of Ford have presided over the cutting of 30,000 jobs in Britain. Their plans for Dundee included workers on half the wages of other Ford workers. They wanted to emulate Nissan, where it is not so much a one-union deal as a no-union deal. Fewer than 10 per cent. of the 1,400 workers are members of the AUEW. That was achieved by Nissan interviewing 30,000 workers for the original 500 jobs and weeding out any workers with a trade union history.
I shall finish with sonic questions that were not answered in last week's debate. Why were there no consultations with the trade unions in the car industry or in British Aerospace? Why was there no ballot of the workers to be affected by the merger? What is the future of Longbridge, Cowley and the existing Aerospace plants? Does the five-year guarantee cover all existing plants within BAe and Rover? Where will the new large-scale investment come from to continue producing volume cars? What guarantees exist for jobs? The Minister offered half an inch of hope in the last sentence of his contribution last week, when he said:
We are exceedingly proud of the deal and more than content for it to be subjected to scrutiny when it is completed".—[Official Report, 4 May 1988; Vol. 132, c. 971.]
On 28 October last year, I asked his boss, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster,
if he will introduce a comprehensive system of departmental monitoring of privatised concerns.
That is after the hundreds of jobs lost at Alvis after privatisation from Rover in Coventry, and after the 20 per cent. cut in jobs within six weeks of the privatisation of Self-Changing Gears from Rover in Coventry, and after the 80 per cent. cut in the original 3,000 work force of Coventry Climax after privatisation from Leyland in Coventry. The Chancellor of the Duchy gave me a rice, simple answer:
No, Sir."—[Official Report, 28 October 1987: Vol. 121, c. 297.]
I hope that the Minister wins the battle in the Department and that monitoring takes place.
This deal stinks. The future for car workers, particularly with the chill winds of economic recession blowing across the Atlantic, is again looking bleak. If the deal goes through, trade unions in Rover and Aerospace will have to come together at shop steward level and build a stronger, combined organisation to resist the cuts that Day and Smith and the Government obviously have in mind.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Industry (Mr. Robert Atkins): In the short time that he has left for me, I shall deal with some of the points that the hon. Member for Coventry, South-East (Mr. Nellist) has raised. It is customary for the Minister, in replying to an Adjournment debate, to congratulate the hon. Member on securing the debate. I should not wish to depart from that fine tradition. The hon. Gentleman is to be congratulated on his achievement in bringing this subject to the attention of the House, but he will agree, for different reasons, that we have had an excessive focus on the subject. I suspect


that many of those who are involved in considering the deal that has been the subject of interest and debate will learn from the Hansard columns as they will from the other comment that has been made about it.
You, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire, South-East (Mr. Lightbown) will not be surprised to hear that I could not disagree more fundamentally with almost everything that the hon. Gentleman has said. I suspect that that will please him immensely, as he would be extremely worried if I were to agree with him. As he knows, on 4 May, I stated that I represent a constituency that saw the beginnings of Leyland Motors, which grew into what is now the Rover Group. I have a substantial constituency connection with British Aerospace. I have talked to the work force in my constituency and in surrounding areas. I know exactly what their view is and while of course one or two are worried about what will happen, the vast majority of those I have spoken to are entirely in favour of the deal.
A variety of people—for example, the component manufacturers, and even, in the hon. Gentleman's own constituency, the managing director of Parkside Garages—have taken up the matter with the hon. Gentleman. To his credit, he made it vehemently clear that he believed, as he said earlier, in a completely nationalised motor industry. I imagine that Mr. Davies, the chairman of the Austin Rover Midlands Region Dealer Association, was shocked even to his experienced core by the response that he got from the hon. Gentleman, in that he was not prepared to listen at all or to take account of those repesented by the dealer association.
I have sympathy with my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. King), who, in the debate on 4 May, cautioned against over-exposure of the Rover Group's affairs in the House. I do not believe that it is in the interests of the group, which means its employees and the dealers to whom I have referred, to have its model strategy and investment plans exposed to sometimes gratuitous and necessarily only partly informed comment, to which it is often very difficult to respond without further breach of commercial confidentiality. For that reason, if for nothing else, I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for saying in the second part of his speech that his concerns were with the motor industry generally. It is on this that in the short time left to me I want to speak.
I cannot add a great deal to what has already been said on this subject in the debate. The hon. Gentleman has intimated that he may have to pursue the matter further, and that is his privilege. I shall be happy to respond, because I have no fears over this deal which will be of benefit to a wide variety of people within the Rover Group and British Aerospace and to many constituents of my hon. Friends throughout the country.
I turn briefly to some of the companies whose fortunes are of interest to the hon. Gentleman and his constituents, and incidentally to those of my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, South-West (Mr. Butcher), who, like me, is a Minister in the Department of Trade and Industry and never ceases to represent the interests of his constituents in a different but just as positive a manner as the hon. Gentleman.
I happen to think, as my hon. Friend does, that Jaguar, for example, is an outstanding example of a British

company whose reputation for quality and performance is established worldwide. Since privatisation, sales records have repeatedly been broken; successful new models, such as the XJ6 and the convertible XJS, have been produced; productivity has risen spectacularly—threefold since the early 1980s; and employment has increased by many thousands. It would be hard to find a more telling instance of the general lesson that the route to the creation of secure jobs is the efficient production of the goods the world wants and is prepared to pay for.
Another outstanding success in a different part of the market has been Peugeot-Talbot's expanding operations at Ryton. Following the £30 million modernisation programme for the 309 model, Peugeot has invested a further £19 million in the 405, the 1988 European car of the year. Start-up of the 405 production has led to a second shift at the Ryton plant, creating some 1,400 new jobs. Both these excellent models, built at Ryton, have been produced not to supply the United Kingdom market alone but for export as well. Nearly 15,000 309s have already been exported, and many 405s will be built for the European market.
The hon. Gentleman referred to a number of questions that he wanted answered and believed, understandably, had not been dealt with from his point of view, since he did not participate greatly in our debate the other day. While, inevitably, I have not time to deal now seriously and at length with the points that he raised, I shall be more than happy, and will endeavour, to write to him to answer them. He raised them rather late in his speech and I feel that he deserves a detailed answer.
I believe, as do many people who understand the motor industry generally, that there has been a renaissance of the industry, which has come about because it has endeavoured to overcome the many problems that it has faced in recent years.
One of the reasons for that is the economic climate which the Government have created. Gone is the era when fine-tuned demand management made planning a nightmare. How could the motor industry, with its characteristic long lead times for development, find the confidence to invest in a climate of stop-go economics in which the industry itself was used as a key instrument to regulate demand and activity? The stability of the Government's overall economic policy has provided a welcome respite from this for the car industry, as for United Kingdom industry as a whole, and replaced it with the prospect of continuing growth, combined with low inflation. Second must be the transformation of industrial relations. The Government have contributed by erecting a proper legal framework, but the real contribution has come from management, with renewed freedom to manage, working together with employees who realise that there is a common purpose in seeing off foreign competition.
In my constituency, when I drove off the line the 50,000th Leyland truck, I was able to tell the work force that it had done a tremendous job, along with management, in the face of overwhelming difficulties to bring the company into the 1980s and 1990s. I am sure that hon. Gentleman will agree with me about the work force in the industry.
Although the hon. Gentleman is knowledgeable because of his experience in his constituency, I believe that his assessment of the solution is wrong, as are his conclusions. I hope that he, along with me and many of my


hon. Friends who believe that much has been achieved although more still needs to be done to put the motor industry in a better position for the 1990s and the year 2000, will recognise that the hook on which he hung his speech—the Rover Group-British Aerospace deal—will be

good for the industry, for his constituents and mine, and also for industry as a whole throughout the United Kingdom.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at nineteen minutes to Twelve o'clock.